Back-to-Back West Region Champions. That is what the Colorado Mesa University Triathlon team gets to say after they completed their race in South Dakota on Sunday morning.
“As a team we did really well, we placed first in DII and one of our goals coming into this seasonwas to win regionals, which we did today.” Sophomore Hannah Croasdell said.
The freshman athletes made their way up to the podium when Mazzy Jackson and Abigail White both placed first and second at the race that was held in South Dakota. Jackson beat out White for the top spot by only 12.5 seconds.
As the freshman exceeded expectations. The veterans held up their end as well. Croasdell opened her second season with a fourth place finish with a time of 1:10:07.9. Her teammates were not far behind her with Maggie Simmons and Madison Batkiewicz coming in sixth and seventh place.
“We want to win nationals this year since we were second last year, but Queens [University of Charolette] is a hard team to beat. As a team, I think we could all beat Queens if we get out of the water in the first pack and push it on the run. You never know how a race will go end up.” Croasdell said.
Nationals are on Nov. 16 but CMU has two more meets until then. They will return to South Dakota again on Sept. 22 in Yankton for the USD Invite.
“Being in SD this week gave us a more familiar idea of what the weather conditions are like, like humidity, water temp, and air temp in the morning. The course is going to be in a different area next weekend though so we can’t expect the terrain or layout to be the same.” Croasdell said.
