Born & Somers Cap Off Breakout Seasons as All-Americans at NCAA XC Championships

Saturday, November 23

Terre Haute, IN

11 A.M. CT

Oklahoma State University

NCAA Cross Country Championships

Born & Somers Cap Off Breakout Seasons as All-Americans at NCAA XC Championships

November 23, 2019 | Cowgirl Cross Country & Track

STILLWATER – Molly Born and Taylor Somers capped off their 2019 cross country seasons as All-Americans this morning at the NCAA Championships in Terre Haute, Indiana. Both Cowgirls finished inside the top-20, as Born took 16^th and Somers took 18^th.

The duo of Born and Somers enjoyed an incredible 2019 season that showed leaps of improvement over the past year. Born improved her finish at nationals from a year ago by 170 spots, making the leap from 186^th to 16^th. Not to be outdone, Somers improved her finish by 119 positions as she made the jump from 137^th last year to 18^th today.

"Both women have worked extremely hard over the past year," head coach Dave Smith said. "It's great to see them rewarded for all of their hard work, focus and dedication. I thought they both had their best races of the season today."

With their finishes, Born and Somers became the two highest-finishing women Dave Smith has coached in his 11 seasons at the helm of the women's program at OSU.

"That speaks volumes about how hard they've worked, the progress they've made and what they mean to the future of our program as we go forward and try to get our team back to the national championships, that we will be hosting next year in Stillwater," Smith said.

Born, a sophomore from Lake Quivira, Kansas, ran a time of 20:28.2 in the 6K race this morning, 1:18 faster than she ran at nationals a year ago. Somers, an Omaha, Nebraska, native, ran a time of 20:30, shaving :53 off of her time at last year's NCAA Championships.

Born and Somers became the first Cowgirl cross country All-Americans since Ingeborg Loevnes in 2015, and the 11^th and 12^th Cowgirls in program history to earn the honor. Joining Born and Somers, Iowa State's Cailie Logue was the only other Big 12 woman to earn All-America honors.

"Knowing we will have two returning All-Americans next year, we've never had that on the women's side, that's huge. But even more importantly, I think for the other women in our program to look at what these two have done, how far they came in one year, look at where there finished this year compared to last year, it should give them a lot of confidence in what they're doing and give them some targets to shoot for," Smith said. "These two women running the way they did today should raise the bar of possibilities for the rest of the women in our program."

Women's Race (Individual) – 6K

16. Molly Born – 20:28.2
18. Taylor Somers – 20:30.0