Yellow Jacket women complete final course ahead of conference championship

SOUTH BEND, Ind. - Exactly three weeks out from the Wolverine-Hoosier Athletic Conference, the Yellow Jacket women's cross country team added an additional race to better prepare. On Friday, the team raced in the 2024 Bethel University Invitation in South Bend, Ind. at St. Patrick's Country Park, hosted by the Bethel Pilots. 

DC completed the 5000-meter course in 13th place out of 16 teams with a total score of 393 among its five runners. 

Leading the pack for the first time all season was Zawadi Debola, who ran the course in 23 minutes and 38 seconds, landing her in 76th place. All year, Debola and Mira Horvath ran similar times, however, Horvath usually finished just ahead. On Friday, Horvath came in 77th place with a time of 23:39 — just a single second behind Debola.

With a time of 33:27, Israa Khamis was the third runner in for the Yellow Jackets, coming in 129th. To round out the race for Defiance, Amira Knight and Rakel Thompson completed the course nearly simultaneously, just a tenth of a second apart — the closest margin all season — in 134th and 135th place. 

Yellow Jacket cross country will continue to prepare for the WHAC championships on Nov. 1, hosted by Aquinas. 

-JACKETS-