Page 4 The Clarion November 22, 1988
JJ- *-5'
At the start of the men’s five mile national cross country champion- fairwav BrpvarH’! mnnorc k j-
ships. 205 of the country’s best junior college runners take off across the ®
under the bridge
Gaines wins national XC crown; BC teams place 4th
Alice Gaines’ first place finish in the na
tional cross country finals makes her the
first Brevard College woman to earn the ti
tle of individual national champion.
Running with her teammates on Nov. 12
over the 5k course in the Snake River Ca
nyon near Twin Falls, Idaho, Gaines beat
149 other competitors with her 18:34 time
— six seconds in front of the runner-up.
“I knew she had a shot at it,” said Coach
Dave Rinker, “it couldn’t happen to a
nicer person.”
But the Blacksburg, Va., sophomore’s
winning run at the National Junior College
Athletic Association cross country cham
pionship meet came as a bittersweiic
tory for Brevard College. *
While her teammates — both wjo’s
and men’s teams-scored respaWe
fourth place finishes in the natioiuiBC
couldn’t match the team triumphslist
year when the men won the champiikip
and the women earned a strong s«i.
“We just didn’t get the team etfiwe
needed,” Rinker said matter-of-fact To
have won, the BC men would havenied
five men to place in the top 25, acconi|to
Rinker. BC finished 6th, 18th, 22Mlrth
and 35th.
Rinker said, “We had the worsi
Najional Champion Alice Gaines on the way to her 5k win, paces
nerself through the first couple miles before making her move.
^ the race s end, a triumphant Alice Gaines is overcome by
she IS congratulated by Saul Laird, left, and Scott Dvorak, r*-
can’t hplipvp it I iiist ran’t HpIipvp it ” shp rried.