BEAUMONT, Texas - After four meets against the top competition across the nation, Lamar University's cross country teams are set to head out west to San Antonio for the Southland Conference Championship meet.
In LU's last meet two weeks ago, the men opened things up finishing in 28th place with 785 points. For the second meet in a row,
Freddy Richardson was the top runner finishing in 94th place at 24:35.8 to be the only runner on both sides in the top 100.
The men have produced four top 30 finishes including two top fives with their best finish being third at their home event, the Early Bird Opener. In that meet,
Jonathan Rivera was LU's lone top 10 runner placing ninth at 18:13.46.
On the women's side, LU posted a 26th place finish with 841 points. Leading the Cardinals was
Cara Inch, who ran across the line at 118th to be the top female runner for LU.
This season, the women posted three top 10 finishes with two top fives and one first place finish at the Rice University Invitational. In that race, all seven female runners participating finished in the top four with top 10 finishes from
Nia Clatworthy (3rd; 14:45.1),
Ashton Rainey (5th; 14:57.8), and
Mykayla Mims (8th; 15:04.5). That performance would garner national recognition as LU was named the NCAA Women's Team of the Week. Clatworthy would later earn a SLC Women's Runner of the Week award following a 13th place finish at the heavily-competed Chile Pepper Festival, which ignited a seventh place result for the Cardinals.
Both teams will look to claim the conference title after finishing second in last season's meet on both sides. On the women's side, Clatworthy finished in the top 10 at 21:23.90 while Mims (27th; 22:22.71) scored a top 30 finish and
Natalee Bergeron (60th; 26:24.33) placed in the top 60.
Hayden Eubank (22nd; 25:06.97),
Geovany Cisneros (26th; 25:16.84),
Jonathan Rivera (33rd; 25:46.23),
Alejandro Villalva (39th; 26:02.30), and
Aaron Saenz (60th; 27:09.5) all competed in last season's meet for the men.
The event will be hosted this year by UIW at the Windcrest Golf Club. The women will run first at 8:30 a.m., while the men will go at 9:30 a.m.
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