Centennial Conference Preview
LANCASTER, Pa. – The Franklin & Marshall women's cross country team opens postseason racing this Saturday when the Diplomats take part in the 2022 Centennial Conference Championships. The 2022 championship meet will be held at Haverford, with the women's 6,000 meter race set for an 11 a.m. start.
A live stream of the finish line (weather permitting) and live splits will be available for the conference championship through the links above.
Franklin & Marshall placed sixth in the team standings a season ago after a fifth-place showing during the 2019 championship. Those two finishes represent the team's highest placements since 2009 when the Diplomats also placed sixth as a team that season. The Diplomats graduated their top four runners from the 2021 championship meet and will be looking for new stars to emerge as the roster features as many as six runners who could be making their championship debut this weekend.
Emma Kline was the breakout star for the team during the regular season and owns a personal best time of 23:09.4 which she at the Paul Short Run. With her times this season, the senior looks poised to improve on last year's 56th place finish. Fellow seniors Alysse Danyi and Sydney Dzenutis are the team's highest returning finishers from last year, taking 48th and 50th in the final individual standings. Both have run 6,000 meter courses close to the 24 minute mark during their careers. Another senior, Kate Henderson, makes it four Diplomats that have broken the 25 minute mark on the team. Henderson took 64th at least year's CC Championship.
Looking to make an impact during their first Centennial Conference Cross Country Championships are a number of underclassmen. First-year Annalise Kauffman owns the best time of that group at 25:13.2, which she set at the Paul Short Run after finishing two-tenths of a second ahead of junior teammate Julianne Cadden. Cadden also had her career PR at Lehigh and will be making her cross country championship season debut. Junior Valerie Fieberg enters the meet with momentum as she set a personal-best 25:30.3) at Gettysburg just two weeks ago, while first-years Abby Bachman and Lucy Olsen each broke the 26 minute mark at the Paul Short Run earlier this fall. Senior Grace Miske could also make her championship debut, although she would be making her return to action for the first time since a very strong 12th place finish at the Alumni 5K (20:43) during the first week of the season.
Six regionally-ranked teams will compete among the 10 squads at the championship. That list is headlined by Johns Hopkins and Dickinson, who are first and second in the latest Mid-Atlantic Region rankings. Swarthmore (No. 2 Metro), Gettysburg (No. 6 Mid-Atlantic), Ursinus (No. 6 Metro), and Haverford (No. 10 Metro) are also regionally-ranked heading into the meet. The Diplomats did defeat the Fords at the Paul Short Run, but compete in the Mid-Atlantic Region.
After the Centennial Conference Championships, the Diplomats will have two weeks before they return to competition at the Mid-Atlantic Regional in Lock Haven, Pennsylvania where team and individual bids to the NCAA Division III Championships will be on the line.
