Former Hillcrest Academy Raven standout Leah Bontrager was a big part of the success earned this fall by the Central College women’s cross country team. Bontrager, a sophomore, was a member of a Dutch team that claimed multiple team meet championships and runners-up during the regular season and found postseason success at conference, regionals and nationals.

The Dutch started the year winning the title at their home invitational on the first of September with a score of 25 points, beating Loras with 49. Bontrager finished eighth in the field with a 20:16. On September 9th in Grinnell it was more Dutch dominance as they took the championship with a team score of 26, topping Simpson’s 60. She was 11th on the day.

Central finished second on September 30th in Waverly and October 14th in Waterford, Connecticut. Bontrager placed 26th and 70th respectively at those events.

In the postseason, the Dutch were team runners-up when they hosted the American Rivers Conference Championships with Bontrager placing 20th in the field. On November 11th, the Dutch traveled to Waverly for the NCAA Division III Regional Meet where they placed third of 33 teams, with Bontrager going 40th, to advance to the Division III National Championship meet in Pennsylvania. At Nationals, Central finished ninth in the country with a team score of 293 behind champion Carleton’s 151. Bontrager placed 157th individually. This week, she spoke with KCII Sports about the highlight races of the season including the national championship meet. Bontrager said, “Connecticut was beautiful, we were running right by the ocean and that was awesome. We all ran really well that day so we ran into the ocean after. That’s a fun memory. (At conference) the race started a little differently than we all expected. A lot of us were right with the front pack for most of the race, they didn’t take it out super fast. It doesn’t really matter what your time is as much as your place at that sort of meet. Last year I missed (top 20 in conference) by a few sports so that was one of my goals for this year. That was cool to be able to do that for my team. The regional meet was probably my best finish I had all season. We had a pretty good feeling (we had qualified for Nationals), but we found out for sure the next day, so that was pretty exciting. I went into the National Championship meet thinking about getting out fast like coach had told us. Reminding myself that I deserve to be there. I got out fast and stuck with my teammates, working to pass people, working for my team, instead of thinking about the pain I was in. That was cool to go in ranked 16th (as a team) and finish ninth!”

While performing well on the course, Bontrager also performed in the classroom, earning a spot on the American Rivers Conference All-Academic team with her 3.57GPA in kinesiology.

You can hear a full interview with Bontrager during the January 3rd and 4th editions of the KCII PM Sports Page.