The women’s cross country meet was filled with four top five finishes, personal record-breaking ties and eight Colonels placing in the top 16 for the Colonels first win of the year in the Southern Miss Invitational on Friday.Freshman twin sisters Dakota and Brea Goodman took first and second place respectively. Only four seconds separated the twins as Dakota picked up her first collegiate win with a time of 18:37.54 with sister Brea picking up second with her time of 18:41.51.
However, these twin sisters were not the only standouts. Third and fourth place finishes were picked up by junior teammates Lauren Jones and Kadi Whisnant with times of 18:42.79 and 18:43.45 respectively.
Only six seconds separated the top four finishes, making the win a true team effort and six seconds made all the difference to the runners individually. Each of these respective runners broke their previous personal records.
However, the Colonels did not stop with four top five finishes.
Taking 10th place was junior Jessica McLeod with her time of 20:06.07. Senior Imma Kosgei picked up 12th followed by freshman Skyla Jackson who picked up 15th and senior Marion Chebet followed with 16th with times of 20:46.92, 21:23.20 and 21:34.62 respectively.
Nicholls had 20 points to top second-place Southern Miss with 42 points and handed the Golden Eagles their first loss of the season.
“The women went out from the gun and really dominated the race,” head coach Matthew Esche said.
Three top 10 finishes helped the men’s cross country team to pick up second in the meet with a total of 45 points.
Finishing first for the Colonels was sophomore Tyler Folse who picked up sixth with a time of 23:04.81. Following Folse were teammate’s freshman Jordan Reed who picked up eighth and Ross Mulloly who finished 10th with times of 23:31.29 and 23:59.17 respectively.
Junior Joseph Fryou just missed the 10th spot capturing 11th with a time of 24:03.96.
“The men ran well. We had a pretty strong pack, but there is still a lot of work to do,” Esche said.
This meet was the final meet for the Colonels before conference competition that is to be held on Oct. 31 when the Colonels travel to Corpus Christi, Texas.
“It was a huge day for us. This is the perfect set up heading into the conference championships,” Esche said. “It should be very exciting for us if we continue to train well the next couple of weeks, stay healthy and do what we need to do.
