Landmark Coaches Go with Chiango as Top Rookie for 2013

TOWSON, Md. — For being the first freshman to cross the finish line Saturday at the 2013 Landmark Connference Women's Cross Country Championship, Goucher's June Chiango (Wyomissing, Pa./Wyomissing Area) was officially named the conference's Rookie of the Year today.

Chiango, who placed eighth overall in the 6,000-meter race conducted on the campus of the U.S. Soldiers' & Airmen's Home in Washington D.C., was the unanimous choice of the conference's head coaches who voted for Rookie of the Year on Saturday. She was clocked at 24:42.4, which was more than 16 seconds faster than Erika Sarno from Scranton, who was the second first-year runner to complete the race and the ninth-place finisher overall.

It's the third time in the past four years that a Goucher runner has been selected Rookie of the Year for the sport of women's cross country, starting with Kelsey Myette, the runner-up at the 2010 Landmark meet. The following year, the honor went to Katherine Currier (Brooklyn, N.Y./LaGuardia), who placed fifth at the conference meet.

The conference also officially announced the 2013 All-Landmark Women's Cross Country Team today and it contains three runners from Goucher.

Making the first-team for the third year in a row by finishing in seventh place or higher was Currier, who took third place in Saturday's race.

The All-Landmark second team includes Chiango and Katelynn Zidanic (York, Pa./Central York) as they were both among the next seven finishers in the conference meet. Zidanic moved up from 17th place with a half-mile remaining to claim 10th place (25:07.5).