The Southwestern women's cross country team competed Friday, Oct. 12, at the Trent Smith Invite in Mason City on the North Iowa Area Community College campus. It was a cold day with soggy ground as rain dredged the state of Iowa most of the week. The ladies finished in sixth place and were led by sophomore runner Heather Jessen of Baxter.

"It was a great day for all of our ladies; seven of the eight had season-best times and six of them had all-time career-best marks," mentioned Head Cross Country and Track and Field Coach Trey Bruton. The women's race was highlighted by a 10th-place finish by Jessen in 20:41. "Heather was determined to have a good race and she went out there and went after it. Her goal was to break 20 minutes for the first time in her career. While she didn't quite do that, she still had a strong season best and was just 5 seconds off of her PR," said Bruton.

Bruton summarized by saying, "Our ladies got a lot better today. We are closing in on some other teams and with a couple more weeks until the conference championships, I'm excited to see just how close we might be able to get to them or maybe even surprise some people and knock off a team or two if our chips fall right."