SOUTH BEND, Ind. - Following their first place overall team finish in their last outing at the Harding Invitational, the Arkansas Tech women's cross country team once again provides excellent results as a team and individually against major Division I level competition at the Notre Dame Invitational. The Golden Suns took home the 13th overall team finish (52,66,69,72,77 (92) (101)) out of 19 against NCAA Division I programs. Individually, four members of the team set new PR's for the 5K in their race.
FINAL RESULTS
The Golden Suns began the day with the Women's 5000m Open where Mackenzie Hendrix and
Audrey Hill went to work. Hendrix was the first to cross the finish line in the race at 58 overall with a 19:01.9 overall time, which sets a new PR for the freshman. Hill followed with a 19:20.4 total time and placed 65 overall.
Following the Women's 5000m Open, Tech closed out the day competing in the Women's Gold 5000m. Lacing up for the Golden Suns in this race was
Marcie Cudworth,
Ashlynn Mays,
Calli Beshore,
Libby Booth,
Mary Beth Bailey,
Morganne Browning,
Felicity West,
Mandy Sykora and
Avery Stanley. The Women's Gold 5000m race saw 19 total teams competing in a field of 145 individual runners.
Crossing the finish line first for the Golden Suns was Cudworth with a total time of 18:26.9 and finishing 54th overall. Cudworth set a new PR in her last outing at the Harding Invitational where she won the race, but her 18:26.9 time in this race sets another new PR for the sophomore in the 5K as she continues to show impressive results for the Golden Suns. Following Cudworth was Mays finishing 68th overall with an 18:37.5 overall race time. Rounding out the top three finishers for Arkansas Tech was
Calli Beshore who clocked in at 18:43.1 placing 71st overall.
The next to finish the race for the Golden Suns was Booth who placed 74th overall and came across with an 18:46.1 total time. Booth's time in the race sets a new PR for the freshman making her the third of four Golden Suns to notch PR's at the Notre Dame Invitational. Closing out the list of top five scorers in the race for Arkansas Tech was Bailey who crossed the finish with an 18:54.5 overall time at the 80th overall spot. Bailey's finishing time sets a new PR for the sophomore.
Head coach of the Golden Suns,
Brock Hime, was proud of his team for their strong performance among a tough field of competition.
"This was a really fun meet. We had a lot of season best and PRs set today. We are coming off of our most difficult training block so I'm excited to see what we do in 2 weeks coming off of today's performance. Fight On!"
This wraps up the third race of the regular season for the Golden Suns and they will get two weeks to prepare for their next outing in Dallas, Texas. The Golden Suns next race will be the Old Glory Gallop hosted by Dallas Baptist University. The race is set to be held on Saturday, October 15 and will mark the regular season finale for Arkansas Tech.
