Moravian’s Smurla Honored as Landmark Conference Women’s Cross Country Athlete of the Week
TOWSON, Md. --- Moravian University senior Tara Smurla has been honored as the Landmark Conference Women’s Cross Country Athlete of the Week for her performance last week.
TOWSON, Md. --- Moravian University senior Tara Smurla has been honored as the Landmark Conference Women's Cross Country Athlete of the Week for her performance last week.
Smurla ran a time of 22:12.7 on the 6,000-meter course to lead the Hounds with an eighth place finish out of 87 runners in the Lehigh University Invitational as Moravian placed fifth of seven teams to start the 2025 season. Smurla was the first non-NCAA Division I runner to finish in the race, and the Greyhounds were the top non-NCAA Division I team in the meet.
"Tara was very aggressive in this race, going out in the top three through the first mile to test where she was at," stated Director of Cross Country and Track & Field Jesse Baumann. "She was eager to see where she stood after an extremely impressive summer of training, and in the end, she wound up being about 20 seconds faster than in the same race last year. We still have a lot of work to do for some of the goals she ultimately has, but it was a very encouraging checkpoint that we're in a good spot to build from over the next few months before we hopefully return to NCAAs down in South Carolina."
The Greyhounds are slate to return to action on Saturday, September 20 in the Stockton University Osprey Open beginning at 11:15 a.m.
