Gaston College's Birtwistle ties school history with medalist honors in Yeti Invitational

Gaston College sophomore Lexi Birtwistle set school history on Saturday with a first-place finish in the Yeti Invitational at the Cleveland Community College course in Shelby.

Birtwistle not only became the school's second individual medalist in the five-year-old program's history, she won by a school record 1 1/2 minute margin.

"Lexi ran phenomenally well," Gaston College coach Kody Kubbs said. "She won by a really healthy margin and really had no one near her for the entirety of the race."

A year ago on the same course, Keirieonna Wilson was the school's first-ever medalist when she won the Region 10 women's individual title with a winning time of 19 minutes, 59.56 seconds. Wilson won by 56.7 seconds.

On Saturday, Birtwistle won with a time of 20:36.4.

Teammates Maddie Frank finished fourth (23:10.7), Sasha Harrelson 17th (28:27.5) and Carson Summey 18th (28:49.9). Harrelson and Summey were running the first collegiate meets.

"The success that Lexi and Maddie are having isn't surprising at all," Kubbs said. "They've put in a lot of work and are so much farther ahead in their training from a year ago. They've well-positioned themselves for success.
"I'm also super impressed with Sasha and Carson as they made their college debuts."

In order to get a team score, you must have five runners compete and Kubbs is confident the Rhinos will be adding runners in the coming weeks.

Gaston College is off next week before competing in the Livingstone Cross Country Invitational in Salisbury on Oct. 10 and Upstate Invite in Spartanburg, S.C., on Oct. 18 for their final preparations for the Region 10 championship meet Oct. 25 at the Cleveland Community College course in Shelby.