LA GRANDE, Ore. - Northwest Nazarene's Julia LaMar didn't know what to expect going into her first 'normal', non-COVID cross country race in two years. The junior now has a pretty good gauge of where she stands after snagging first place in the Eastern Oregon Invite in La Grande, Ore.
LaMar won the 5k race in 19:22.9, closely followed by her teammate Kalen Belton, who came in third at 19:28.0.
NNU cross country coach Ben Gall knew what the girls needed to persevere through the hardest part of the race. "I always struggle mentally in the middle mile, so he (Gall) told me that I needed to trust Kalen to pull me through the middle mile, and that's exactly what happened," LaMar said.
"By the time the final mile started, I was in a spot to be competitive."
Despite taking a wrong turn just before the final stretch, LaMar bested College of Idaho's Kahea Figueira in the icebreaker meet.
Senior Kalen Belton surprised herself and her coaches, coming back from a nagging knee injury that impaired her training most of the summer. The performance echoed her sophomore-season opener at CSI, when she was fighting a similar injury and shocked the competition despite inconsistent training.
"It was a confidence booster," said Belton. "It went better than I expected because I was very iffy about not being able to train as much as I wanted this summer."
The women's team captain is excited about what the ladies will do in the coming races. "It was a good setup for what is to come for the rest of the season."
Sophomore Emily McMahon finished 14th in 20:26.8, Olivia Klein finished 25th in 20:56.1, and Jordan Woods rounded out the scoring five at 31st place in 21:06.2.
The Nighthawks ended up third as a team with 72 points.
Despite missing a few people on the roster due to COVID-related protocols, Coach Ben Gall is just thankful that NNU has a season this year. "I thought they competed well against strong competition, and I'm excited for when we can have the whole team together," he said.
The Nighthawks are back at it on Saturday, September 25 at the Ken Garland Classic hosted by Saint Martin's in Lacey, Wash.
