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Abi Gerstle

The Wittenberg men's and women's cross country teams put the finishing touches on the 2002 season last weekend at the NCAA Division III Great Lakes Regional meet at Ohio Northern University in Ada, Ohio. While the teams are finished for the season, however, one individual continues on again.

Senior Abi Gerstle (Kettering, Ohio/Fairmont) advanced to the NCAA Division III National Championship meet for a third straight year by finishing ninth in the region and grabbing one of five individual berths in the national meet. In order to do this, Gerstle had to run a personal best and school record time of 22:37 and pass a runner from Mount Union with about 200 meters to go.

This is the third consecutive year in which Gerstle qualified for the national meet, adding to her long list of accomplishments. Gerstle was the first Wittenberg female to make the national meet when she advanced in 2000, the first Tiger runner to make it two times when she qualified in 2001 and, of course, broke new ground when she advanced to this weekend's meet at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn.

In addition, Gerstle was the first Wittenberg runner, male of female, to capture first place in the North Coast Athletic Conference in 2001. She repeated that feat this year.

Other female runners to finish with personal best times were freshman Tracy Butler (Ft. Wayne, Ind./Homestead) in 24:03, junior Becky Barnes (Williamsport, Ohio/Westfall) in 24:17, sophomore Marissa Davoll (Cincinnati, Ohio/Anderson) in 25:49, junior Lindsay Veit (West Chester, Ohio/Lakota) in 26:09 and junior Nikki Norcia (Brunswick, Ohio/Brunswick) in 26:33. Wittenberg finished 16th in the 33-team field.

On the men's side, senior Nick Dewald (Mansfield, Ohio/Senior) led the way with a 94th-place finish in a season-best 27:29. Junior Tim Damopoulos (London, Ohio/London) had a season-best in 28:13 and freshman Caleb Arnold (Enon, Ohio/Greenon) had a personal best in 28:28. The Tigers finished 26th among men's teams.