State College, Pa., Sept. 7, 2002 - Penn State freshman Tracey Brauksieck (Homer, N.Y.) led the Nittany Lions to victory in her first race with a winning time of 21:10.91. Brauksieck's time was the 11th best time ever run on Penn State's 6K course. Brauksieck led the entire race and finished strong 17 seconds in front of second place runner Julie Culley of Rutgers University who ran a 21:28.28.
The Lions dominated the competition with six of their runners placing in the top 10. All six runners were underclassmen. Penn State Head Coach Beth Alford-Sullivan was very pleased with her team's performance.
"We had plans to try to win the meet today and I was pleased with how dominant we were," Alford-Sullivan said. "Tracey ran a very tactful race and was very composed."
Penn State's 22 points far outdistanced second place Bucknell who scored 82 points. Rounding out the top five teams in the 17 team field were Allegheny College with 137, Dickinson with 153, and Rutgers University with 159.
Running a solid race for third place was sophomore Chelsea Lenge (West Hartford, Conn.) with a time of 21:51.03. Junior Katy Hillard placed fifth with a time of 22:02.17 and sophomore Molly Landreth was sixth with a mark of 22:11.61. Rounding out the scoring for Penn State was junior Maureen Thomas (Bethlehem, Pa.) seventh in 22:13.97 and junior transfer Tara Johnson (Glenolden, Pa.) who was eighth with a time of 22:19.96.
The Nittany Lions will be in action next week at Georgetown, last year's NCAA third place team. The meet is set to start at 9 a.m.
