The Radford cross country team wanted to get their 2017 campaign off to a good start and they did just that as the women finished second and the men finished third at Virginia Tech’s Hokie Invite at the Buford Meredith Course on Friday.
In the women’s 4K, freshman Annsley Eckert led the way in her first collegiate race, crossing the finish line in 11th out of 51 runners with a time of 15:04.6. Junior Percie Lyons and senior Carrie Keevey stuck together and came in just behind with times of 15:09.5 and 15.09.8 to place 13th and 14th respectively.
Sophomore Olivia Hodge made her way to the finish line with a time of 15:59.3 to take 27th and freshman Naomi Brindley rounded out the Highlanders’ scoring on the night with a 31st-place finish thanks to a time of 16:18.0.
Also completing the race for Radford were senior Mariah Quintero (16:32.3) and junior Amber Street (17:00.6).
Those results show true progress for a program that had only one athlete run a 15:30.0 or under at the Hokie Invite in 2016 when Courtney Burton ran a 15:05.00. The team’s average time also improved from 15:39.58 to 15:33.
That momentum carried over into the men’s 6K where freshman Carson Fernandez turned in a time of 19:20.8 to take 12th out of 70. Fellow freshman Juan Cisneros joined him for a 15th-place finish, making the trip in a time of 19:28.0.
Last year’s top men’s runner, senior Friscoe Poole, was the third Highlander to cross the finish line with a time of 19:34.9 to place 18th. Senior Haben “Z-Runner” Zemichael and freshman Pete Decker took 24th and 25th with times of 19:47.9 and 19:56.2 to round out the men’s scoring.
Sophomore Mak Casey (20:22.3) placed 36th, junior Nathan Burgreen (20:32.6) took 40th, freshman Neil Lucas (21:13.7) secured 47th and junior Kyle Hetrick (22:49.7) gave Radford its final finisher in 63rd.
Similar to the women’s squad, the men have clearly improved by leaps and bounds since 2016. At last year’s Hokie Invite, Poole was the only runner to complete the race in under 20 minutes at 19:39.10 and this year Head Coach Eric Thatcher’s group had all five of his scorers achieve that task. The team’s average time lowered from 20:19.42 to 19:38 this year as well.
Men’s Final Standings:
1 Concord 38
2 VMI 50
3 Radford 57
4 Washington & Lee 77
5 Longwood 139
Women’s Final Standings:
1 Virginia Tech 15
2 Radford 80* (Won Tiebreaker)
3 VMI 80*
4 Washington & Lee 80*
5 Concord 104
–RU Athletics
