A Fitting End To The Breakout Season

PELLA, Iowa (11/14/15)—Junior Kaya Baker capped her breakout season by earning one more honor for her trophy case. Baker ran a 23:04.8 at the NCAA Central Region meet, placed 20th and earned All-Region honors for the first time in her career.

Baker's first-ever top 20 region finish helped the Cobbers finish 14th in the final team standings. Last year Concordia finished 25th at the region meet.

Baker is the third Concordia athlete to earn All-Region honors since 2008. Teammate Melissa Uhrich garnered the award in 2013 and Hailey Brendan placed 16th in 2008 to earn her all-region honor.

Baker earns her All-Region award after capturing MIAC All-Conference honors by placing 15th at the conference meet on Oct. 31. It was also the first time in her career that she had earned all-conference honors.

Baker's time at the region meet was less than 18 seconds behind the top 10 at the meet. She was only 7.4 seconds away from a top 15 finish.

Concordia's second, third and fourth runners were the same from the finish at the MIAC meet but it was the No.5 athlete at the region race that proved to be the attention getter. Maria West came out of nowhere to post the fifth fastest time and help the Cobbers to the 14th place finish.

West, who wasn't even in the team's top 7 at the conference meet, posted a higher individual finish at regions than she did at the MIAC meet. West clocked a 25:10.0 over the 6k course and finished in 115th place. She was 125th at the smaller conference race in a time of 25:57.0.

Brianna Gruenberg, Sarah Curran and Uhrich were the 2,3 and 4 finishers for Concordia. Gruenberg crossed the line in 23:50 and was 48th in her first-ever region meet. Curran was 73rd in a time of 24:20.1 while Uhrich closed out her collegiate career by running a heart-felt time of 25:03.3 and placed 109th.