Freshman runner Oneda hitting her stride in time for NCAAs

Freshman Hannah Oneda wasted little time getting up to speed in her first season as a member of the Johns Hopkins women's cross-country team.

She won Centennial Conference Runner of the Year honors after placing first in the conference meet with a time of 21:03, a new school 6K record. A week later, she won the NCAA Division III Mid-East Regional Championship meet, besting a field of 346 runners in a time of 21:34.7 for her fifth victory of the season. On Saturday, she leads the Blue Jays—ranked No. 2 nationally in Division III—into the NCAA Division III National Championship meet in Terre Haute, Ind.

Oneda, a standout prep runner at Winters Mill High School in Westminster, Md., before joining Johns Hopkins this year, is profiled in today's edition of The Baltimore Sun. She and her teammates are poised to post the program's best-ever finish at nationals, improving upon a seventh-place showing in 2010.

"I always wanted to be part of a team that could do big things, so winning nationals was definitely a big goal of mine in coming to Hopkins," Oneda told The Sun. "We have so much potential to win, it would be absurd if we weren't going for it."

The Blue Jays are blessed with depth, which will serve them well this weekend. They placed six runners in the top 25 at the regional meet, including junior Holly Clarke in fifth.

"If we all run great, we can run with any team in the country," JHU coach Bobby Van Allen told The Sun, "so naturally, our goal is to make that happen to contend to win."

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