Bobcats hurdle Mountain Hill

This past Saturday the Georgia College & State University’s men’s and women’s cross country teams ran their first course of the season at a hilly course at Berry College.

The Berry College Cross Country Invitational proved to be very challenging for the GC&SU runners. The course itself was difficult enough with slopes that most of the runners found to be very challenging. The second demanding factor was that the length of the run was longer than normal. The women’s team had to run an 8k event, while the men’s team had to run a 12k event. In most meets the women’s team runs a 5k course, and the men’s team runs an 8k course.

“Well it was a different course from what we usually run,” said Cross Country Head Coach Joseph Samprone. “Everyone ran a longer race than they usually run, especially the freshmen. It was straight uphill, then straight downhill. Most cross country courses are not like that.”

Both teams finished fifth. The top runners for the Bobcats were Bethany Loushine for the women and J.R Black for the men. They finished 3rd and 11th, respectively.

In the women’s event, Loushine led the team with a time of 34:12. Sophomore and new runner Mandy Alliston also finished in the top twenty (19th) with a time of 39:49. Rounding out the top five were freshman Kelly Sowers (28th) with a time of 41:11, sophomore Kelly Fleischmann (30th) with a time of 41:31, and freshman Meghan Spall (31st) with a time of 41:38.

On the men’s side, the experienced seniors took the top four positions for GC&SU. Black finished the course in 44:48. He was joined in the top twenty by Morgan Stallings (16th) with a time of 45:24. Will Hill placed 30th with a time of 49:54. Jeff Raymond finished 35th with a time of 51:44. While sophomore Nate Mwane rounded out GC&SU’s top five with a time of 54:40, good enough for 40th overall.

“It was a good way to get both teams back to running full-time,” said Samprone. “They have an off-season that lasts from late November till early August, so I felt that this would make a good first course.”

The Bobcats next competition will be on Saturday, Sept. 14 at Alabama-Huntsville.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 13 2002. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry