Steen fifth at NCAA II national championships

Western Washington University’s Katelyn Steen became just the second runner in school history — man or woman — to place among the top five individually, finishing fifth, and the Viking women were 12th and men 13th in the team standings, bettering their national rankings by six and 10 places, respectively, at the 2014 NCAA Division II National Cross Country Championships held Saturday, Dec. 6, at E.P. “Tom” Sawyer Park.

“It was amazing to watch them,” said WWU coach Pee Wee Halsell, whose women were ranked 18th and men 23rd in the final U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches/NCAA II Top 25 polls. “I don’t think any one of them could do any more … It was great to see them perform so well. They had confidence in their training and went out and did it.”