Lipscomb Men’s and Women’s Cross Country kicked off its season Saturday morning at Vaughn’s Gap at Percy Warner Park in the Belmont Opener.
There were nine schools that participated in the meet, including local teams, such as Belmont, Vanderbilt, Tennessee State and Trevecca, as well as Austin Peay, Murray State, Rhodes and UT-Chattanooga.
“It’s a preseason meet, but it’s also not a preseason meet,” Director of Cross Country Bill Taylor said. “The women always run a 5K, but guys usually run an 8K or a 10K,” Taylor said. “The women will sometimes run a 6K, but I don’t know why they don’t run the same distance.” The distance for the men in this meet is smaller than that of a regular cross country meet.
For this meet, instead of the NCAA scoring all the teams together like what would be done at a normal meet, the teams are split into groups and scored.
The reason for the scoring difference is because the opener is not an official meet.
“Since this is sort of primer for the regular season, we don’t really look at time as much as where we want to be when we get to those regular season meets,” Taylor said.
“We feel really good about the performances today of both the men and women,” Taylor added. “It gives us a good feel for where we are as a team and individually. It also gets us ready for the real meets, especially Vanderbilt in two weeks.”
Freshmen who are new to the team had a chance to experience how a college cross country meet is run.
“It gets everyone ready again for the season, and gives the freshmen a chance to see how it’s done,” Taylor noted. “It lets them settle into their first college season.”
The Men’s and Women’s Cross Country teams’ first competitive meet of the year is on Saturday, Sept. 17 at Vanderbilt’s Commodore Classic. The meet is also at Vaughn’s Gap in Percy Warner Park.
Photo courtesy of Lipscomb Athletics
RESULTS
(MEN, Team)
- Lipscomb, 47, 4-7-10-11-15(17)(22) 1:18:25
(MEN, Individual)
- Brent LEBER (FR) Lipscomb 4 15:32.2 0:13.4
- Ryan SPEER (SO) Lipscomb 7 15:38.5 0:19.7
- Owen GLOGOVSKY (FR) Lipscomb 10 15:41.6 0:22.8
- Kyle JOHNSON (SO) Lipscomb 11 15:41.9 0:23.1
(WOMEN, Team)
- Lipscomb, 31, 2-4-6-9-10(14)(17) 1:29:13
(WOMEN, Individual)
- Brooke KINGMA (SO) Lipscomb 2 17:42.7 0:12.8
- Sally LARSON (SR) Lipscomb 4 17:43.9 0:14.0
- Barbara Lee BALL (SR) Lipscomb 6 17:46.5 0:16.6
- Bridgette DOUCET (SO) Lipscomb 9 17:53.5 0:23.6
- Avery FRANKLIN (JR) Lipscomb 10 18:06.1 0:36.2