BEREA, Ky. --- Asbury cross country teams traveled to Berea College Friday night to open their 2023 season in the annual Cross Country Jamboree. Junior Cameron Tapp shined in the season opener for AU after returning from battles with injury in recent seasons. 

This season-opening meet is always contested on slightly shorter courses than the usual standard distances. The 4 kilometer women's race and 6 kilometer race are rarely run, but Asbury runners Bailey Gassmann and Cameron Tapp took advantage of the opportunity to establish new Asbury school records for the women and men, respectively.

Bailey, a freshman from Churchville, PA, ran well in her first collegiate race finishing 10^th out of the 82 runners from nine different schools in a time of 15:17.7.

Next in for the Eagles was Ava Miller 24^th place in 16:12.1. Rounding out the scoring positions for the ladies team were Lucy Kate Gibson, Sophie Nordyke, and Lily Anne Rinehart. They finished fifth out of the six scoring teams.

The men's race featured a breakthrough performance by Cameron Tapp, a junior from Louisville. After dealing with nagging injuries the past two years, Cam ran his best collegiate race ever with a time of 20:33.0 which trimmed 24 seconds off of the previous school record set my Wes Preston in 2021 for the 6K distance.

Joining Cam in the scoring column for the Asbury men were Daniel Kersey, Luke Wheatley, Tyler Chong, and Josh Rittgers.  Athletes from nine schools competed, with the Eagles finishing fifth out of the eight scoring teams.


"Bailey and Cam ran well tonight. I was especially excited for Cam. He has been in-and-out of the training room and physical therapy for two years, and tonight finally got a chance to show what he can do with a consistent stretch of training."

"Overall, I did not have the team prepared to do as well as I had hoped we would. Both the men and women were just a few points behind Berea and Georgetown, and those are good benchmark schools we need to beat.  We have a couple of weeks before we compete in the Midway Invitational, and I think we'll have a much stronger team showing there".
Head Coach | Randy Crist


Asbury will race again on September 16 at the Midway University Invitational.


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