ORLANDO, Fla. - The Ashford University women's cross country team competed in the Disney Classic on Saturday, finishing 20th out of 28 teams.

Much like the men, the women's team was faced with harsh weather conditions and a muddy track. The fact that the men's race destroyed the track was also working against the Saints. But the Saints made progress on improving their splits and not burning themselves out early in the race.

"We ran well as a team today although the results won't show fast times," Saints Head Coach Tyson Graham said."We actually ran even splits which I am really excited about. The course conditions made us 30 seconds to a minute slower than we usually would run but we have made a lot of progress, now we just need to put it all together."

The Saints were led by freshman Emily Paull, who was the only member of the team to place in the top-100, finishing 54th after running a time of 20:10.

Junior Raven Ruger was second on the team, finishing 120th overall with a time of 21:23. Freshman Soryia Sabir wasn't far behind, finishing 124th with a time of 21:28.

Freshman Angela Woolbright (148th/21:58), junior Nkemi Okwumabua (176th/22:24), freshman Ellerie Lagerhausen (210th/24:04) and sophomore Jessica Windett (249th/25:59) rounded out the times for the Saints.

Ashford will be back on the course on Saturday, Oct. 22 when they take part in the Graceland Invitational in Lamoni, Iowa.