AUBURN, Ala. — Against the largest field this season, the LSU men’s cross country team posted an 11th-place finish at the Tiger Invitational on Saturday at the Indian Pines Golf Course. The Lady Tiger finished 20th among the 67-team field overall.
“The competition was tough today,” said LSU head coach Mark Elliott. “I would have wanted a better performance but when you go against top-ranked teams it’s challenging, I think we competed the best we could.”
The Tigers finished the day with 341 points. The No. 21 Auburn men captured the men’s orange race team title with 31 points following were the Washington Huskies in second with 49 points. Iowa finished third with 72 points and Clemson was fourth with 155.
The Lady Tigers tallied 517 points. The Husky women were first with 19 points, followed by Oregon State with 98 points, and Iowa with 99. Georgia was fourth with 138.
Individually, the Tigers were led by sophomore Richard Chautin who finished 43rd overall in the 27-team men’s 8K orange race with a time of 24:11.64. Another Tiger finished in the top-100 of the pack was junior Alan Sticker who crossed the finish line in 24:42.87. Also scoring for the Tigers were Andy Florek (101th, 25:21.31), Tim Landry (103rd 25:23.36), Kyle Hecker (109th 25:30.77), Kenneth Schiffman (115th 25:39.10) and Cullen Doody (124th 25:52.94).
On the women’s side, was lone senior Christina Porter placing 89th overall after completing the 5K course with a career-best time of 18:22.86. Another Lady Tiger set a career-best, freshman Laura Carleton with a time of 18:48.24. Also scoring for the ladies was Kayann Thompson (19:11.16), Jenna Hennssler (19:43.19), Amber Abbott(20:15.49) and Lauren Ybarzabal (20:19.94).
“The women set personal best today and I’m very proud of them,” said Elliott. “It goes to show you that week in and week out we are getting better. We had some really strong fields today and I hope when we get into the conference we run better.”
Both the Tigers and Lady Tigers will take next weekend off before returning to action October 18, at the Chili Pepper Invitational in Fayetteville, Ark.