CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. - Rolling into one last meet before the Atlantic Sun Conference championship Oct. 30, the women’s cross country team finished fifth at the UTC Front Runner Invitational Saturday afternoon. Having already run this course earlier in the season, the ladies saw a lot of improvement from the UTC Power Ade Invitational only a month prior.

The women’s team saw themselves competing against school such as host UTC, Samford, Tennessee, West Georgia, Tennessee State and Middle Tennessee State. Going into the last leg of the season, head cross country coach Stan Sims is seeing the team blossom and all of their hard work paying off.

“The big thing for our women today was to see an improvement on a course we have seen before which they did,” Sims said “We made it harder for them because we asked them to go out harder than what an ideal pace would be. Even though they went out hard, they held on which shows they are stronger. Alison and Stephanie were really impressive today because they were able to hit the mark we asked of them but overall everyone improved which is what we like to see at this point.”

Improving her time from earlier this season by four seconds, Mackenzie Howe led the Owls with a second place finish in 10:58. Coming in second for the Owls was Alison Wald in 33rd with a time of 12:28, beating her previous course time by over twenty seconds. Stephanie Sawyer was next for KSU in 34th with a time of 12:32. Haley Carson broke her previous course record, coming in 39th at 12:54. Finishing out the top six was Brittany Robinson in 52nd.

Next up for the Owls will be a visit to USC Upstate in Spartanburg, S.C. for the Atlantic Sun Conference championship Oct 30.


Team Results

1. Samford-  34 points

2. Univ. of Tennessee-Chattanooga- 46 points

3. MTSU- 72 points

4. Tennessee- 83 points

5. Kennesaw State- 142 points

6. West Georgia- 175 points

7. Tennessee State- 191 points


Individual Results

2. Mackenzie Howe (10:58)

33. Alison Wald (12:28

34. Stephanie Sawyer (12:32)

39. Haley Carson (12:54)

52. Brittany Robinson (16:01)