Joplin, MO – Saint Martin's cross country runner Cassidy Walchak-Sloan finished off one of the most remarkable seasons in Saints history Saturday morning, when she tallied an All-American finish at MSSU Race Course in Joplin, Missouri.
The Saints program was amazed by the performance that Cassidy put on today. Cassidy placed 27th out of 264 other runners, her time was 20:34. This time broke the 6k XC school record. This remarkable feat was a wrap of both Cassidy's season and Head Coach Matt Lowe's. When asked what Head Coach Matt Lowe had to say about this remarkable performance, he explained this "I'm having a hard time describing what she's done this season because she's gained so much ground on improving herself as a student-athlete and as a person. Cassidy really invested her time in shutting out the noise and getting the work done. She exceeded my expectations. One thing that I've found is that she knows how to race both smart and aggressively. She has the ability to channel her energy to race hard when she needs to, and that's something coaches cannot teach. It comes at a time when runners need to make decisions in the middle of a race that determines a breakthrough performance for them to reach the next level of performance."
Lowe went on to achieve the specifics of just how remarkable what Walchak-Sloan achieved was, "Cass was in 62nd place at the 1 mile mark and made up tremendous ground to cover 35 spots to finish as the 27th fastest female cross country runner in NCAA Division II. She dropped her previous PR from 21:00 at Regionals 2 weeks ago, to 20:34. I told her to stay steady through the uphill portions of the race and make your moves on the downhills. She went out with pure guts, and it was a proud moment for me, especially with her moving up by 16 spots at the 5k mark, and 13 more over the last 1K to finish as her fastest split at 3:14 (5:12 mile pace)."
Cassidy joins Shannon Porter as the only Saint Martin's cross country runner in history to become an All-American and in doing so, broke Porter's 6K record. Both Coach Matt Lowe and Cassidy Walchak-Sloan will look to roll this historic cross country season into the winter when the indoor track and field season starts shortly.
