The women of the orange and blue went into Nashville and chomped their way to victory. The Lady Gators pulled off a narrow 61-70 win over the Arkanas Razorbacks to win the SEC Championship.
On the course, which was just over 6K, they sailed in at 2-6-14-17-22 for 61 points, that was built largely on a roster of familiar faces here in Florida. Senior Florence Ngetich started it of with a runner-up 20:27, followed by junior Agata Strausa in sixth place 20:40. After that, it was a string of our native daughters from the Sunshine State: Callie Cooper (14th, 21:05), Shelby Hayes (17th, 21:16), and Stephanie Strasser (22nd, 21:21) rounded out the scoring for the Gators. Shelby Davidson (45th, 21:44), Mandy Perkins (58th, 21:58), and Julie Macedo of Delaware (63rd, 22:03) also rang in.
The men finished in fifth place with 121 points, led by Mark Parrish in seventh place 24:06 for the 7,985 meter race. Other Florida natives in the fray: JL Hines (22nd, 24:32), Jimmy Clark (28th, 24:44), Matt Mizereck (31st, 24:49), Eduardo Garcia (36th, 24:58), Phil Duncan (43rd, 25:13), and Harsha Torke (98th, 26:34).