Running without three of their top seven runners in conditions that were less than ideal, the Belles still managed a fifth place finish on Saturday in the Manchester Invitational.

"The team performed well overall," head coach Dave Barstis said. "Three of our top seven didn't run due to illness, but we still managed to finish fifth. The whole team is still continuing to improve their times from week to week."

For the second week in a row, the Belles faced harsh conditions that didn't lend themselves to running, although Barstis was willing to make the best of them.

"[It was] wet, muddy, cold and windy. Perfect conditions," Barstis said.

Sophomore Jackie Bauters led the pack again with another personal record of 20 min. 28 sec., topping the 20:36 she ran last weekend at the Eagle Invitational. The time was good enough to give her an eight place finish overall.

"[Bauters] had an eight second improvement," Barstis said. "The others ran fairly consistently."

Freshman Amy Blue and sophomore Jessica Kosco kept close to each other, finishing in 22nd and 23rd place respectively. Blue ran a 21:25 and Kosco finished the race in 21:34.

Rounding out the Belles top five were freshman Elizabeth Commers, who finished the race in 36th place with a time of 22:29 and junior Jennie Buehler who finished with a time of 22:38.

With MIAA Championships in two weeks, Saint Mary's will be looking to improve on Saturday's results. The one-five split, that Barstis would like to be within 30 seconds, was more than two minutes during Saturday's race, due, in part, to illness.

"There's not much you can do when runners get sick," Barstis said. "The thing now is to get everyone ready to peak in two weeks."

This week will involve intense training for the runners before they can rest in preparation of the final MIAA meet. Saturday will be their first weekend off since they started running in early September.

"We have one more week of hard training, then we have a rest, recovery week," Barstis said. "I feel everyone is primed to have their best race at the championships."

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