Troy cross country wins big

Troy’s cross country team earned its first victory as a team since 2016 last Friday at the Montevallo Falcon Classic. The men won the competition in the 8k event with 40 points, and the women were runners-up in their event, earning 66 points in 5k.

During the meet, multiple top-ten finishes were placed individually and numerous personal records were broken.

Riley Treadaway was the individual runner-up in the men’s 8k event, running a time of 25:46.00 and breaking his personal best in the process.

Lane Watson, Caden Blackman and Patterson Graham all finished one after the other in fifth, sixth and seventh place, respectively. While Watson blazed through the finish line with a time of 26:08.00, Blackman and Graham finished exactly one second apart, with Blackman running a time of 26:23.5 and Graham running a 26:24.5 in the event.

Pierre Boerkey and Ethan Forbes both ran under 28-minute times during the event. Boerkey ran a time of 27:30.2, placing 20th, and Forbes ran 27:55.3, earning 22nd in the event. Bennett Phillips finished just five seconds afterward at 28:00.5 and earned 23rd place in the process.

In the women’s 5k event, Troy only lost to Auburn Montgomery, who scored 27 points and had a total time of 1:35:01 in the event compared to Troy’s 1:38:31 total time.

Winny Kosgei was the sole top-ten finish for the Trojans in the women’s 5k event, finishing fourth with a time of 19:03.4. Kosgei beat her personal best as well, finishing almost a minute and a half faster than her performance at the JSU Foothills.

Behind Kosgei, three more Trojans managed to finish the 5k in under 20 minutes, with Abby Jepkemboi crossing the finish line at 19:34.10 in 12th place, Pheline Mining running at 19:53.00 in 16th place and Guilianna Rivero finishing with a time of 19:56.5 in 18th place. All three Trojans broke personal records as well, with Mining finishing over a minute faster than her time in Jacksonville.

Addison Bazemore rounded out the Trojans in broken personal records, finishing with a time of 20:49.4, more than ten seconds faster than her time at the Foothills.

Head coach Brian Cunningham expressed his appreciation for how both teams ran their respective categories.

“[...] None of them are satisfied with the performances tonight,” Cunningham said. “We have plenty more to learn, but we are going to be happy with the team results tonight.”

Looking forward, cross country will be competing in the South Alabama-held Azalea City Classic this Friday in Spanish Fort. Both men and women will be running a 5k during the meet.