Kellar Paces Terriers at Battle in Beantown

Friday, September 21

Boston, MA

All Day

Boston University

Battle in Beantown

September 21, 2018 | Women's Cross Country

Results

Results

BOSTON - Freshman Jessica Kellar of the Boston University women's cross country team posted the best performance of her brief collegiate career when she took 29th at the Battle in Beantown on Friday afternoon at Franklin Park.

Kellar finished the 5K race with a time of 17:53, which was over 1:40 faster than her time in last weekend's season opener against Florida State on the same course. Kellar was also ninth among her peers in the Northeast Region and eighth overall among rookies.

"I was really pleased Jessica mixed it up with some of the best in the country as a freshman," head coach Paul Spangler said. "Breaking 18 minutes on this course, I was really happy for her. I thought she did a great job."

BU finished 20th as a team with 591 total points. Sophomore Corinne Batsu (19:10), senior Alicia Huerta (19:18) and senior Dominique Betterbed (19:24) all improved upon their respective times from a week ago. Sophomore Laura Parkinson finished in 19:37 to round out the Terrier scorers, with junior Coco Ocker (19:37) and senior Elin Wolker (19:39) also running faster than last week. In fact, Wolker bested her time from last Friday by over a minute. In addition, freshmen Stephanie Casaletto (19:49) and Meghan Convery (20:02) bested their times from their collegiate debut.

"I thought our whole group was significantly better this year compared to where we were at this time last year," Spangler said, "and that's without two of our top seven in the lineup. That's definitely encouraging. Put them in the mix and I feel pretty good. Bucknell and Lehigh were not too far in front of us and those are two of the top teams in the conference."

The Terriers competed against a strong field that included four nationally ranked opponents and six of the top 10 schools in the Northeast Region.

"It's a bit of an eye-opener when you come out here and compete against the best, but that's what we've got to strive to be," Spangler said. "I think today was a step towards that."

After two straight races at Franklin Park, the Terriers will hit the road for the first time in 2018 when they compete at the Paul Short Run hosted by Lehigh on Saturday, Sept. 29.