 Appalachian State brings home their fifth consecutive confrence title at this meet. Special to The Appalachian by Chris Meyer
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by RANDI KITTS
Intern Sports Reporter
The Appalachian State men’s cross country team breezed through the Southern Conference championship Saturday at Elon University, scoring 44 points and bringing home their fifth consecutive title.
Senior Phil Mitchell finished fourth for the Mountaineers, followed closely by sophomore Sean Soderman and senior Alec Meyer, who finished sixth and seventh, respectively.
“All that matters is that we won,” Mitchell said. “We wanted five conference titles, and that’s what we got.”
The women’s cross
country team finished third in the championship with 83 points, falling
short to Samford with 74 points and Elon with 75 points.
Head
coach Michael Curcio was satisfied with both teams’ performances and
said both succeeded in meeting and exceeding their predicted
championship finishes.
“We are very happy the men won,” he said. “We were favored to win, and so they performed up to expectations.”
“The
women were picked to finish fifth or sixth and finished third. There
were three freshmen in our top five, so it’s a good sign for the future
that we’ve got that many [competent] underclassmen.”
Freshman Brittney Caudle claimed SoCon Runner of the Year after finishing first in Saturday’s conference championship.
The first place finish was Caudle’s second of the season.
“I was
really excited,” Caudle said. “I wish our team, as a whole, could have
finished better overall, but we did the best that we could.”
“I think the competition was really strong,” she said. “Everyone did really well, so we were definitely proud of how we did.”
Caudle was also named SoCon Freshman of the Year.
Senior Katie Booker earned second-team all SoCon honors finishing 13th overall while junior Dani Reese finished 16th.
“We were very fortunate to have Brittney win the overall race,” Curcio said. “We were satisfied with the results.”
As the
men and women return from a successful SoCon finish, the runners look
ahead to prepare for the NCAA Southeast Regionals in Louisville, Ky.
Nov. 13.
Curcio predicts the men will finish in the top 10 to 12 and the women in the top 15 to 20.
“We’d
like to definitely get in the top eight or 10 at Regionals,” Mitchell
said. “Every year we kind of set that goal, and it never really works
out. With five seniors, hopefully this is the year we can put it all
together and get the top eight which we are fully capable of.”
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