Tempe, AZ - The Black Hills State Yellow Jacket triathlon team had their best performance of the season at the Women's Collegiate National Championship on Saturday. With triathlon as an emerging sport in the NCAA, the Yellow Jackets face the challenge of competing alongside both DI and DII teams from across the country. The team's third-place overall finish in Division-II was led by junior, Mathilde Bernard, and was made possible by strong performances from fellow Yellow Jacket scorers, sophomore, Chelsea Basford, and freshman, Myna Buckley. Other Jacket competitors include freshman, Hannah Hirschi, and sophomore, Kennedy Teeslink, who played integral roles in pushing back scoring athletes from other D-II teams.
Basford led the Jackets out of the 750m swim in a time of 10:56. Bernard and Buckley were close enough behind Basford for all three to complete the 20K cycling portion of the race in the same draft pack. All three dismounted their bikes into the transition area within seconds of each other. The ladies headed out onto the run course with a two-minute deficit behind the second draft pack of the race, which contained the leading Division-II athletes. Over the 5K distance, Bernard was able to work herself up to a 6th place finish with an impressive run time of 20:14. Basford and Buckley worked the run together and finished in 13th and 14th, respectively.
The race was a Collegiate National Championship debut for four of the five athletes racing. Despite the rapid growth in level of competition in the Division-II ranks each season, this marks the third year running that the team has made an appearance in the top three at the National Championships. The lady jackets plan to continue meeting the demands of top national performance. The team has already signed two promising recruits for the 2020 season and are looking forward to bringing a strong, veteran-led team to the event next year.
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Black Hills State is located in the Northern Black Hills of South Dakota, sponsoring 13 NCAA sports with membership in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, the NCAA emerging sport of women's triathlon and NIRA rodeo. For all information regarding Yellow Jacket Athletics, please visit BHSUAthletics.com or follow us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram @BHSUAthletics.
---BHSUAthletics.com---
