(photo by Tim O'Dowd)

William and Mary junior Elaina Balouris (Allison Park, Pa.) will run for her third All-American honor in the past 12 months after advancing to the NCAA finals at 10,000m for the second year in a row.  The mathematics major set her second school record of the spring with her time of 33:43.27, and advanced to the finals after placing ninth in the East semifinals Thursday night in Greensboro.  The NCAA Finals will be held June 5-8 at the University of Oregon, and include the top-12 finishers from the two semifinals tonight (East and West).

Complete Results

Balouris advances for the second -straight year, improving on her 34:29 performance from last year's semifinal with tonight's record showing.  In addition to improving her own lifetime-best by 13 seconds, it also broke the Tribe's school record of 33:55.23, set by Ali Henderson '04 back in 2003.  This is Balouris' second school record of the year, after she briefly held the 5,000m mark when she ran 16:03.43 at the Colonial Relays.  Balouris also qualified for the USAT&F Senior Championships with the performance, coming in under the provisional barrier of 33:50.

Also racing in the 10,000m on Thursday evening was sophomore Dylan Hassett (Alpharetta, Ga.), who ran 36:14.09 for 38th place.  The race brought Hassett's breakout year to a close, but not before she recorded lifetime-bests in every distance raced and earned All-CAA honors for the first time in cross country.  She also achieved the very difficult feat of earning All-East accolades in both the 3,000m and 5,000m indoors at the ECAC Championships, racing to top-8 finishes against the best runners in the East on back-to-back nights in March.

The Tribe's next appearance at the NCAA East Prelims this week will come Saturday evening, in the 5,000m run.