SPARTANBURG, S.C. – The UC Santa Cruz women’s cross country team made their fourth straight appearance at the NCAA Division III Cross Country Championships on Saturday morning, coming away with a 31st place team finish with 844 points overall. The team averaged a 24:03.6 as a squad with a total time of 2:00.17.9 with Elena Stanciu leading the charge on the day, earning a 157th place finish. Notably, the Banana Slugs celebrated their fourth NCAA Championships with one of the nation’s top honors as Helena Janku was announced as the NCAA Elite Scholar-Athlete Award winner during the Championship awards ceremony. Janku carries a 4.00 GPA and double majors in Environmental Studies with a concentration in Conservation Science and Policy and Legal Studies.
How It Happened
On a warm and sunny day in Spartanburg, the Banana Slugs set off for the Championships at 11am with the heat shining in their face as they took on the 6k course. Elena Stanciu used the course’s opening downhill segment to her advantage, coming through the 1k split in 3:13.6, sitting comfortably inside the lead pack in 18th. Stanciu maintained her top 40 positioning at the 2k mark with a 6:52.5 split, dropping into 29th place. As the race progressed, the field began to separate with hills and heat becoming a factor throughout the race. Elena Stanciu was able to fight throughout the rest of the race, coming away with a 157th place finish in a loaded of nearly 300 runners, crossing the line in 23:12.9. Helena Janku was the next Banana Slug across the line, working through her fourth straight NCAA Championship smoothly, taking 214th overall with a time of 23:39.3. Remarkably, Janku put her own performance aside as the senior stopped just short of the line to help an MIT student-athlete up and cross the finish, walking side by side with her arm around the MIT runner, ensuring the pair crossed the line to complete the race. Emma Wirz and Fiona Wolf were the next two to cross the line for UCSC with Wirz running a steady race from start to finish, hitting the 1k split in 3:33.2 in 236th place before finishing in 24:05.9 for a 244th place finish. Wolf had a strong first year NCAA debut, going out in 3:35.8 at the 1k mark, sitting in 271st before jumping up to 262nd by the end the race, clocking a 24:25.2.
Cheryl Chuang rounded out the top five for UC Santa Cruz, taking 276th overall with a time of 24:54.8, moving up six spots in the final 1k. Holly Alchin and Ryanne Reynolds also turned in solid performances at the NCAA Championships with Alchin crossing the line in 25:03.1 to take 279th while Reynolds finished in 25:57.7 to take 287th.
