After a trying week, the Fire posted a solid return to competition. Southeastern University cross country teams finished strong at the University of South Carolina Beaufort’s Sand Shark Invitational for a men’s third place and women’s fourth.
Ethan Campbell guided the Fire men, which placed all five scoring runners in the top 26 runners, for a team-best sixth place overall in 26:04.6 for the 8K course. Grace Feder had a strong eighth-place showing for the SEU women in a time of 19:00.8 over the 5K distance.
In the team standings, SEU put together a score of 83 for third place in the 14-team field. Converse College grabbed the team title with 27 over Winthrop’s 53. Wintrop’s Daren Hinds took the medalist award by 18 seconds with a time of 24:57.4 over Alain Flores of Converse (25:45.1).
SEU logged a fourth-place women’s finish with a score of 103 of the 15 teams. Winthrop bested Converse and Georgia Southern with a score of 37 to the next two team’s 50 and 60. Lauren Beatty from Converse won the individual title in 18:08.5 over Ga. Southern’s Isabel Placek (18:24.3).
After Campbell’s sixth place, the Fire’s Joshua Shields was just one spot out of the top 10 in 11th (26:36.1). Jordan Hierholzer ran across the finish line in 26:45.1 for 16th. Felipe Ledesma and Tobias Dickerson were only four seconds apart in 24th (27:21.5) and 26th (27:25.1). Rounding out the team top seven, Jeremy Durbin and Michael McDow took 38th (28:02.3) and 44th (28:24.6).
Coming after Feder in eighth, SEU women had their next three runners bunched together in Ashlin Price (19:40.4), Jillian Blaser (19:48.9) and Kaitlyn Vorkapich(20:04.2) in 21st, 22nd and 23rd. Sophie Robinson completed the scoring SEU runners in 29th (20:53.0). Both Izzy Colebank and Gracie McGee were the final two of the top seven in 31st (21:13.4) and 39th (21:52.4).
SEU makes a trip to Knoxville, Tenn., next Saturday (Oct. 25) to take part in the NAIA Appalachian Invitational.
Other SEU Runners:
Men:
TJ Sanders – 28:35.6
Spencer Louis – 28:37.2
Tyler Moody – 34:07.9
Women:
Riley McKinney – 21:52.6
Joselyn Rivera – 25:23.3
