Bona Jones’s remarkable freshman season turned a new chapter Saturday when the
NC State freshman finished second in the women’s junior race at the 2007
USA Cross Country Championships, held Saturday at
Boulder, Colo. With a fourth-place finish at the Atlantic Coast Conference Championships, followed by a 26th-place finish and All-America honors at the NCAA Cross Country Championships already on her resume for 2006-07, Jones finished second at Boulder on Saturday, running the 6k course in a time of 21:58. The Fort Myers, Fla., native was unfazed by the altitude in Boulder, finishing 14 seconds behind Jordan Hasay of the San Luis Distance Club, and six seconds ahead of Kari Hardt of Arizona State in an elite field of 47 of the nation's best junior cross country runners.
With the second-place finish, Jones has qualified for the World Junior Championships, which will be held in Kenya in March. She becomes the 10th runner in the history of the NC State women’s cross country program to qualify for the USA Cross Country national team or junior national team.
