BATON ROUGE- The LSU cross country team opened the 1999 season in fine fashion, sweeping the men’s and women’s titles at the LSU Opener at Highland Road Park Saturday morning.
The men’s team claimed five of the top eight positions, while the Lady Tigers took six of the top eight spots.
“This is as good a performance as we have had in a six or eight years,” said LSU head coach Pat Henry. “The purpose of this meet is to see what kind of shape we’re in and I think we had some athletes come out ready to run. We’ve got some things to work on, but this was a good way to open.”
The Tigers won the men’s competition easily with a total of 22 points, easily outdistancing second place Southeastern Louisiana who finished with 93. The University of Louisiana at Lafayette finished third followed by Nicholls State, West Florida and Tulane.
The Tigers claimed the second through fifth positions in the men’s race. Frans Schimper finished second, running the four-mile course in 19 minutes 49.65 seconds. Billy Bohlke finished third followed by Kenny Henry, the nephew of head coach Pat Henry, and Frank Ensley in fifth. Ryan Raiford finished eighth and Josh Calmes 10th.
Kevin Smelley of Nicholls State won the event in a time of 19:40.09.
On the women’s side the Lady Tigers won handily with a score of 24. Tulane finished second with 60 points followed by the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Southeastern Louisiana, Loyola (N.O.), Nicholls State and West Florida.
Martina Barkman was the Lady Tigers’ top finisher, placing second. The sophomore, making her first appearance since having surgery to repair her achilles’ tendon, negotiated the women’s two-mile course in 11:06.06.
Teammate Susanne Strunz finished fourth, followed by Bridget Cusack fifth, Amanda Occhi in sixth and newcomers Staci Cusimano and Lindsay Daigle in seventh and eighth respectively.
Katrina Gemmeil of Tulane won the women’s title with a time of 11:04.70.
The meet was one of only two home meets for LSU in 1999. LSU does not compete at home again until October 9. Next Saturday both squads travel to Nashville, Tenn., for the Pre-SEC meet, held on the same course that the Southeastern Conference Championships will be run on October 30.