Saturday, Nov. 9, at 8 a.m., Women’s Soccer hosted their third annual Fourteenforteens race at TC Jester Park. Since the first race in 2011, Women’s Soccer has appealed to a large variety of runners with options from a 14k (8.7 miles) to a 5k (3.1 miles) to devote a Saturday morning of running to raise money for organizations including Corridor Rescue, Palmer Drug Abuse, Briggs and Veselka, Tri on the Run, the Healthy Weigh, and Empower Endurance. Ababu Mohamed was the overall winner of the 14k with a course record time of 51 minutes. The Women’s Soccer top three finishers in placing order were junior Mackenzie Ward, sophomore Elisa Arango and junior Sarabeth Sandweiss.

Ward, the Women’s Soccer 14k top finisher, commented  on her preparation for the race and her reaction to her victory.

“To prepare for the 14k, I knew I would have to start training a few weeks before the race,” Ward said. “To prepare, I got advice from Coach Thompson. He created a schedule for running for all the players who wanted to run the full 14k in addition to the running we did in our pre-season soccer practices. About four or five days of the preceding weeks, we were to run anywhere from two to six miles. The other two or three days we were to run for at least 30 minutes to keep up fitness but not get too sore. Mentally, I had to start preparing a week or two before the race, as well as eating with getting the best race results in mind.”

With 2013 statistics of almost 200 runners and over 50 volunteers and the number of participants growing each year, Women’s Soccer has started a fundraiser that it hopes will be able to continue to grow in helping out the organizations it annually donates to. Taking their motto of  “Hard Work. Team First.” out into the community is something that Women’s Soccer has done to give back to others in and around the community.