Photos by Raymond Tran / MileSplit
Addison Knoblauch, Libby Dowty, and Nicki Southerland represented Indiana on the national stage at Foot Locker Nationals in San Diego, CA.
On the legendary Balboa Park cross country course on Saturday, Knoblauch would run to a 5th place finish, the best for any Indiana girl since Anna Rohrer won in 2014. The University of Notre Dame commit also ranks 6th all-time for Indiana girls in terms of her placement this year at Nationals.
Knoblauch paced herself well from the start getting out to 9th place by the half mile mark. Throughout the race she would never fall further back than 11th with her biggest move coming in the final mile of the race where she passed four runners. Addison was able to give one final surge to get around two of those four runners in the closing 50 meters of the race to snatch 5th place.
Addison caps off an impressive senior year capturing 5th at Foot Locker Nationals to become an All-American after placing 4th at state. She is also coming off a 19th place finish from NXN last weekend.
After placing 17th at Foot Locker Nationals last weekend Libby Dowty would come back to get another top 20 national finish placing 19th this weekend.
She would remain steady throughout the race hovering around mid pack in the 20th place range. Like Knoblauch, she would also pass 2 competitors in the final moments of the race to improve her positioning to inside the top half of the field.
Dowty had the second best Indiana girls sophomore finish all time, only behind Anna Rohrer's win in 2012. Libby is also the 8th best returner for next year when removing graduating seniors.
Nicki Southerland also came into the weekend previously running at a national meet as she placed 6th at the RunningLane XC Championships last weekend.
Southerland would get out with Dowty through the first half mile and fought hard throughout the race. She was to hold off a pair of runners from the West coming into the finish chute to place 27th.
Nicki wrapped up an amazing high school XC career where she was one of only 31 Indiana girls to ever make Foot Locker Nationals. She will join Addison Knoblauch as teammates at The University of Notre Dame next year.
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