Oct. 1, 2011
RENO, Nev. -
The University of Nevada finished in second place at the UNLV Desert Invitational on Saturday, Oct. 1, hosted at Veterans Memorial Park in Boulder City, Nev. Nevada was in competition for the first time since a home meet on Sept. 10, where the Wolf Pack also finished second at the Nevada Twilight.
The Pack scored 57 points, trailing the invitational champion Utah with 33. San Diego State scored 99 points for third, host UNLV was fourth with 101, Cal State Northridge was fifth with 106 and Dixie State rounded out the field at 149. Madeline MacDonald, an unattached runner, was the top finisher at 18:14 in front of Utah's Susannah Hurst at 18:23.
"We had a solid effort," head coach Kirk Elias said. "There is still some room for improvement. We're not sharp yet and it showed. We will start to get a lot sharper in the month of October."
For the second consecutive meet, the Wolf Pack was lead by international transfer sophomore Johanna Olsson. Olsson won Verizon WAC Athlete of the Week honors after leading the team in her first-ever meet in the Twilight and again led the Pack Saturday. Olsson finished fifth with a time of 18:45.
Senior Jenifer McEntire ran a strong race finishing eighth with a time of 19:03. Fellow senior Gloria Sosa ran a time of 19:24 to finish 12th and junior Nicole Painter was 14th at 19:27. Freshman Katie Romanko closed out the scoring lineup for Nevada with a time of 19:35 to finish 18th. Freshman Caitlin Devitt-Payne ran 20:03 for 22nd and sophomore Amber Karnofel was 24th with 20:07.
"Johanna ran very well once again," Elias said. "Jenifer McEntire had a really strong performance after being a little disappointed after the Twilight last time out. Gloria Sosa had another very solid race while Nicole Painter had the best race of her career. Katie Romanko struggled today, and yet still was able to pull it out and finish in our No. 5 scoring spot."
The Wolf Pack will take another week off and then return to action at the Santa Clara Bronco Invitational hosted on Oct. 15 in Sunnyvale, Calif.
