The men’s and women’s cross country teams competed at the LSU Invitational last Saturday, finishing seventh and third respectively. Senior Naomi Jeruto and junior Bethany Burst secured the top individual performances for the women, posting tenth and twelfth place finishes, while sophomore Joseph LeGrange came in as the top performer for the men with a twenty-seventh place finish.

The LSU Invitational took place on Sept. 24 at Highland Road Park and featured 10 women’s teams and 14 men’s teams.

Head coach Sean Brady, in his eighth season as track and field coach, was pleased with the overall performance of the team, especially the women’s third place finish.

“I’m very pleased with our women,” said Brady. “They stepped up and competed at a high level. I think it’s the best I’ve seen our women run as a group.”

The women’s third place finish marks overall improvement from the team’s last competition, the Auburn Invitational on Sept. 9, where the Lady Lions posted an 11th place finish. Burst was the top runner at that meet for Southeastern, posting a 36th place finish.

“I saw something really special from Burst,” said Brady. “It’s the first time she really asserted herself as a front runner.”

Burst was also pleased with her performance and pleased with the team’s performance overall.

“I was really happy with it,” Burst said about the team’s performance. “We’ve been really focused on being aggressive at practice and I think we really did that today.”

Jeruto, who did not run at the Auburn Invitational, expressed satisfaction with the team’s performance and credited the team’s improvement on their closeness and their training leading up to the meet. Jeruto added that she would like to see the team improve in a couple of areas for future competitions.

 “I feel like we need to improve on mileage because that’s where everybody was dying,” said Jeruto.

At the Auburn Invitational, the men’s team was able to put up a collective fifth place finish with LeGrange leading the team with a nineteenth place finish.  On Saturday, the men were not able to match their previous performance, but still ended the day with a seventh place finish.

Brady expressed his satisfaction with the team’s progress this year and feels that the team has an opportunity to continue improving during the remainder of the season.

“I feel good about this team,” Brady said. “They really are developing some relationships, and the dynamics of this group are really going to benefit us at the end of the year because they are supporting each other and we’re training well.”

The Lions and the Lady Lions will be running again on Oct. 1 at the McNeese Cowboy Stampede.