University of Tennessee at Chattanooga redshirt freshman Teghan Henderson (Pickering, Ontario) placed 10th in the second heat Saturday night at the NCAA East Regional and 19th overall.
Henderson ran the race in a time of 16:29.51 and, according to UTC head coach Bill Gautier, she was possibly the closest of all runners to their PR time.
She set her PR of 16:13.03, a school record earlier this season at the Stanford Invitational on April 4.
“She went out hard,” Gautier said. “She may have done better if she’d been patient, but 19th is very good for a freshman. She was just 16 seconds off her PR.”
Temperatures in Jacksonville, Fla., reached the mid-80’s late Saturday afternoon with humidity levels hitting near 80 percent.
“It was so hot. It was brutal,” Gautier said. “She went out so fast she couldn’t recover. She hung on, however, and fought back the pain.”
Henderson was near the front of the pack early, but gradually fell back. She was sitting 14th with 400 meters to go and made a push on the final lap passing runners from North Carolina, Missouri State and Brown for 10th in the heat.
“She is a very outstanding young lady,” Gautier said. “This was a good learning experience. There are lots of positives to take from this. I’m very proud of her.”
Henderson wrapped up a very successful outdoor season. Along with her school record in the 5K, she set a Southern Conference record in the 10K at the league championships. She won both the 5K and 10K at the SoCon finals and was named the conference Freshman of the Year.