The Women’s Cross Country team ended their season taking 13th at National Championships on Saturday, Nov. 18 at the Angel Mounds State Historic Site.

Head coach Jenny Ryan said she was pleased with how the race went with going in 15th and getting 13th out of 32 teams at the meet and 308 Division II cross country teams in the nation, even though not everyone had their best race.

“That’s the hard part about competitions is getting everybody to have the perfect day at the exact same time. Everybody had a good race and some of them had a great race,” Ryan said.

Even though there was illness, and top runners missing from some of the big meets, Ryan said the season went well.

“It’s hard to even qualify for the National Championships, so I’m really proud. This is the third year in a row that we’ve made it,” Ryan said.

Senior Kameron Burmeister took 26th, earning All-American honors for the second time, and saw her college career come to an end at the championships. Burmeister said that she was more emotional about the championships being her last race leading up to the meet rather than at the meet.

“After racing, I realized, yes it’s my senior year, and yes I’m done, but the only way I wanted to leave my cross country career would be to go out there and do my best, and make sure I was taking advantage of every opportunity I had in the race,” Burmeister said.

Burmeister said that she is happy with how her season went, even though it started out slow with her dealing with illness.

“I think I ended up doing better because of it.”

She also said that becoming All-American again is more than she could have dreamed of accomplishing.

“To have run in college all four years and to have been an All-American twice in cross country is crazy to me. I’m more than happy for the result of these last four years.”