Golden Hawks women’s cross country team finishes 17th at nationals

This past Saturday at the USPORTS Championship in Kingston, Lizzy Laurie and the Laurier Golden Hawks women’s cross country team ran remarkably well to cap off one of their best seasons in program history.  

The fourth-year communications major Lizzy Laurie, has been making history for the Golden Hawks all year and she continued that trend this past Saturday. 

Laurie finished 12th place at the national championships, posting a time of 29 minutes and eight seconds.  

The 12th place finish for Laurie, was the best individual finish ever for a Laurier runner, surpassing the previous best 22nd place finish by Bettina Boucher in 2017. 

The Kitchener, native not only earned the best individual finish for a Golden Hawk runner, but she is also the first Laurier runner to be named to an All-Canadian team. 

As she narrowly missed out on the top ten, Laurie earned second team all-Canadian honours, in addition to being named an OUA all-star. 

For the performance, Lizzy Laurie was also named female player of the week once again, marking the fifth time in the past eight weeks that she has won that award. 

Although it is up for debate, Lizzy Laurie may have just completed the greatest individual season for a cross-country runner in program history. 

After a first place finish at the  Bayfront Open a couple of weeks ago, Lizzy stated that she was “shocked” and given the fact that this is her fourh and final year, she mentioned that she“wanted to go out with a bang” 

Laurie did just that, and a whole lot more, as she was even battling a lingering stress facture in her leg for the majority of the season. 

Sydney Pattison, who also had a great season and was named an OUA all-star with Laurie, had a strong performance Saturday,   finishing in 25th place, about 22 seconds after Laurie crossed the line.  

Laurie and Pattison’s results give the Golden Hawks, two runners in the top 25 nationally and contributed greatly to the overall team performance.  

A team which will finish in 17th place in the standings, their best result since the 2010 nationals. 

Leave a Reply