Pittsburgh, Penn. - Junior runner Kendall Fitzgerald battled through extremely rainy and muddy conditions with the rest of the field in today's NCAA DII Championship Women's Cross Country race. 

Fitzgerald jumped out early with the leaders, which was her gameplan going into the race. She started in 40th before moving up to 32nd around 2km. From there, Fitzgerald stayed in the low 40's for the majority of the remainder of the race and would finish 50th overall (23:45.4) in the 268 runner field. 

Fitzgerald beat a number of runners with faster 6K times coming in the race which goes to show her ability to adjust to the difficult elements. Before the race, head coach Gregory Schmidt changed Fitzgerald's spikes to longer 1/2 inch spikes to help deal with the mud. Both men's and women's races were re-started after the initial gun due to runners slipping and falling. 

50th place was 41 places better than Fitzgerald's finish in last years NCAA Championship and 10 places out of All-American ranking. 

This was the first ever NCAA DII Women's Championship when the winner was over the 22 minute mark (Sarah Berger - Grand Valley St. - 22:07.7)