Cross-country: Cornwall's Karrie Baloga qualifies for U20 world championships

No, she didn't win.

And after a year in which Karrie Baloga ran the fastest time of anyone in any division at the state public high school cross-country championships, then beat 275 girls from public and private schools of all sizes in New York to win the high school cross-country Federation title before winning the Champs Girls National Cross-Country championship, that might have been a surprise.

But it depends, of course, on one's definition of winning.

The 17-year-old Cornwall High senior ran to a fifth-place finish at the USATF Women's U20 National Cross-Country Championship Saturday in Mechanicsville, Virginia.

With the top six finishers qualifying to represent the U.S. at next month's U20 World Cross-Country Championships, Baloga covered the three-loop, nearly flat 6K course in 20:07. That put her, for all purposes, in a dead heat with fourth-place finisher Abbey Nechanicky of Minnesota, who's also 17 and also a University of Colorado commit.

The win went to 18-year-old Stanford commit Irene Riggs of West Virginia in 19:45.

Baloga, Riggs, Nechanicky, second-place finisher Ellie Shea of Massachusetts, third-place finisher Zariel Macchia of Long Island and Eva Klingbeil of Colorado, who runs for the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and finished sixth, will make up the American team that will compete Feb. 18 in Bathurst, Australia.

That will mark the second time within half a year that Baloga's running prowess will have taken her to a world championship.

Finishing second at last summer's USATF U20 Track Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Oregon in the 3,000-meter steeplechase, Baloga, who'd previously only competed in the 2,000-meter steeple, represented the U.S. in Columbia in August at the U20 track world championships.

Seeded 23rd, Baloga, then 16 and the second-youngest person in the U20 steeplechase, qualified for the final, where she finished 11th.

She figures already having successfully handled the pressure of international competition will be an advantage for her in Australia.

She'll enter that race unconcerned with her placement in Virginia.

Baloga, who won the girls national Champs cross-country title last fall after finishing second in the regional qualifier, wasn't focused on winning Saturday, just finishing top six to earn that national-team slot for Australia.

"My mentality going in was really just qualifying and knowing I'm in the right spot. I feel that's always the case with qualifiers," she said. .... "The real one is what matters. A qualifier doesn't define who you are."

Baloga enjoyed running the college-length 6K, 1K more than a typical high school cross-country race. But having cut her cross-country teeth on hilly courses like Bear Mountain and Bowdoin Park in Wappingers Falls, she didn't love the fact the Virginia course was almost as flat as a track.

Still, she liked the fact the race showed her ability to compete on a type of terrain she may encounter in college racing.

The Australian course, which she has seen in photos and video, is night-and-day different.

"It's really awesome. There are mud pits and hay bales and logs and hills," Baloga noted. "It's a bit more of a challenge and, being from New York, it suits me best and, I'd say, (being) from the Northeast, as well."

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The U.S. team comes from all over, but Baloga already knew U20 male qualifier Kole Mathison. She met Mathison, another Colorado commit, when he won the boys national Champs title. And she had already been in contact with Nechanicky, since both are Colorado-bound.

Baloga's mother and father will also make the trip to Australia, a further plus.

"This is exciting," she said.

"I'm so grateful for the opportunities I'm able to have (through running), to travel and meet new people," she added.

Nancy Haggerty covers cross-country, track & field, field hockey, skiing, ice hockey, basketball, girls lacrosse and other sporting events for The Journal News/lohud. Follow her on Twitter at @HaggertyNancy

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Cross-country: Cornwall's Baloga to compete at U20 world championship