PEORIA, Ill. – Yazmine Wright earned her third individual cross country title of the season with her 6k win at the Bradley Pink Classic in Peoria, Illinois on Friday, while the Wichita State men's squad knocked off 30 teams to claim their second team win of the year with 104 points.
 
"Winning my third race was definitely a lot of fun, and it's a great way to head into the conference meet," Wright said.
 
Wright battled it out with Xavier's Rachel Butler and Nebraska's Erika Freyhof, as the three runners stayed within two seconds of each other through the 5k mark.
 
"Today was probably the most challenging race I've had so far this season," Wright said. "I was able to get right on the back of the Nebraska girl and let her carry me through the majority of the race. The last 1k was tough, but once I got to the final downhill, I was able to power through to the finish."
 
Wright finished the last kilometer with her fastest split of the race (3:22.70) to pull away and beat out Butler by 4.7 seconds with a personal-best time of 20:35.50.
 
"I'm really excited about Yazmine," head coach Kirk Hunter said. "Being undefeated to this point in the season is an amazing accomplishment. She was challenged by the second and third place girls in this race throughout the 6k distance. She had to battle to stay with them and then with 200 meters to go turned it on to outkick the girls and win again."
 
Danielle Rinn was the second Shocker woman to cross the line, taking 27th with a personal-best time of 21:36.20.
 
"I'm also very proud of Danielle," Hunter said. "She beat people that she hasn't been beating all year and had a huge race for us today."
 
On the men's side, Clayton Duchatschek and Adam Moore led the Shockers to their second team win of the season, placing 11^th and 12^th, respectively.
 
"It was a total team performance on our part," Hunter said. "Jed struggled today after falling during the race and having some other issues, which resulted in the rest of the guys needing to step up."
 
Bryce Merriman (23^rd), Shadrack Chumba (28^th) and Trey Rios (3oth) rounded out the scorers for Wichita State, with Jackson Caldwell coming in 46^th.
 
"Clayton looked fantastic again today, and I was very happy with the way Adam, Bryce and Shadrack battled over the last 3k," Hunter said. "Jackson and Trey really came on today to help bring home the team championship. It's nice to have enough depth that when your number one runner has issues, the team can still battle to win over a quality field of teams."
 
###