New School Record Highlights Effort at Southern Stampede

The HLG cross country team made their longest trip of the season over the weekend as they traveled to Joplin, MO to compete in the 22nd annual Southern Stampede. The meet, which was hosted by Missouri Southern State University, featured numerous NAIA and NCAA nationally ranked schools and the competition brought out the best in a number of the HLG runners.

THE WOMEN
RESULTS
The women ran to a 27th place finish at the Stampede and their effort was highlighted by the performance of freshman Breanna Newton, who completed the 5K course in a school record time of 18:35. Breanna's effort earned her a 33rd place finish out of 302 competitors. In addition, she was the 4th place NAIA finisher and top NAIA freshman performer in the talented field. Freshman Mandi Riddle had a strong performance, as the newcomer to cross country continued her rapid improvement by finishing the race in a time of 20:56. Mandi's time was a nearly two-minute improvement from last week's race. Sophomores Jessica Bailey (22:19) and Sarah Erickson (22:40), both trying to overcome early season injuries, finished 3rd and 4th, respectively, for the Lady Trojans, while freshman newcomer Amber Zinkula had a strong showing in her first collegiate meet, crossing the line in 22:42 and earning the 5th place team finish. HLG also got strong efforts from sophomore Liz Wilder (23:04) and Carissa Eichmeyer (23:39).

COACH COMMENTS: The ladies came out today and showed a lot of effort and heart. Obviously Breanna had a great race and was rewarded with the new school record time. What also impressed me was the improvement of some of our newcomers to XC. What many people don't realize is that Mandi, Liz, and Amber are all new to cross country this year and they are all in our top-seven. They continue to show great improvements each week and I expect that to continue. We are still struggling with some injuries that are holding us back from reaching our potential as a team but we are starting to progress and, with three weeks of training before our next meet, we are going to be able to really focus on getting better, faster, and tougher.

THE MEN
RESULTS
The men's team overcame some adversity to bring home a 20th-place finish at the meet. Junior Philiph Tonui had an outstanding day, earning a 19th place finish with a time of 25:02, just one second off of his own school record time. The team lost #2 runner Brett Jones who was unable to complete the race due to the extreme heat but senior Jason Cline stepped up and raced to a time of 28:38, just a few seconds off of his personal best. Freshman Tyler Malone finished 3rd for the Trojans (29:00) with junior Deon Russell (30:01) and sophomore Ben Griffin (30:34) rounding out the scoring effort.

COACH COMMENTS: It was kind of a hard-luck day for the guys today. Brett was having a great race before the heat got to him and Ben's time was adversely affected because he stopped to check on his teammate, which was the right thing to do. With that said, I think that both Philiph and Jason ran fantastic races and were rewarded with great finishing times. Deon has been battling injures and is not in race shape, so I was proud of how he came out and competed. Once he gets healthy he is really going to help us out. To have all of the adversity today and still be just behind some of our conference rivals, I feel pretty good about where we are. We'll use the upcoming break from competition to crank up the intensity with training and get these guys ready to be their best down the home stretch.

The team has a few weeks to prepare for their next competition, which takes place October 9 at Central Methodist University.