With the women’s team ranked No. 22 nationally and the men’s team ranked No. 6 in the South region, Ole Miss Cross Country is off to a strong start. Both teams look forward to pre-nationals, hosted in Madison, Wis.
Their first meet of the season was the Memphis Twilight XC Classic in which the women’s team ran a 5K and the men’s team ran the four-mile race.
The women’s team won first overall with a score of 25, led by juniors Sarah Schiffman and Beth Arentz, who ran 17:37.7 and 17:37.8, respectively. To round out the top five runners, Frances Luna and Ainhoa Brea received sixth and seventh with times of 18:18.8 and 18:26.3. Adrienne Luna finished ninth with a time of 18:34.7.
The men’s team won first with a score of 48, with four of their top five runners coming in the top 10. Caden Townshend ran a 20:07.2, Aidan Hodge ran a 20:18.87, Landen McNair ran a 20:20.47 and Gabe Scales ran a 20:31.30. Stone Smith rounded out the top five Rebel runners with a 21:02.25, to finish 22nd overall.
The next meet they participated in was the Gans Creek Classic in which the men’s team finished seventh and the women’s team finished third.
The top runners for the women’s team all finished in the top-50 with senior Loral Winn finishing fourth overall. The other scoring runners were Sophie Baumann who finished 18th with a time of 20:27.3, Sarah Schiffman who finished 26th with a time of 20:35.6, Beth Arentz who finished 32nd with a time of 20:45.0 and Hannah Ielfield who finished 43rd with a time of 20:57.9.
The men’s team finished seventh with a score of 238. They were led by a strong finish by Toby Gillen who finished sixth with a time of 23:13.7. Aiden Britt and Elyas Ayyoub were the next scoring runners who finished 21st and 40th, with times of 23:39.3 and 23:58.8, respectively. Finally, Jack Meijer and Landen McNair finished 78th and 101st to round out the Rebels’ top five with times of 24:27.2 and 24:37.1.
Both teams look ahead to the pre-nationals meet in which they hope to continue to improve before the SEC championship and start of NCAA meets.
