HAMMOND, La. – The Southeastern Louisiana cross country teams will have their final tune-up before the Southland Conference Championships when they travel to Clinton, Miss. Saturday for the Mississippi College Choctaw Open.
Southeastern is among 25 schools scheduled to compete on the Choctaw Trails course, along with New Orleans, Nicholls State, Northwestern State, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana-Monroe, Southern, Grambling, Louisiana College, Xavier-Louisiana, Alcorn State, Belhaven, Blue Mountain, Jackson State, Millsaps, Mississippi Valley State, Mobile, Rhodes, Rust, Spring Hill, Union, William Carey and Williams Baptist.
The women's 5K is set for 8:30 a.m. with the men's 8K scheduled to get underway at 9:15 a.m.
"It's a really nice place to run," Southeastern head coach
Sean Brady said. "I think we should have enough competition to get what we need out of it. The weather should be agreeable and the conditions right for us to run pretty well. We're starting to unload just a little bit so I'm expecting us to really run well tomorrow."
Southeastern is competing for the first time since the Lions took third and the Lady Lions came in fourth at the McNeese Cowboy Stampede on Oct. 1. The Southeastern men were led by freshman
Grant O'Callaghan who finished 11
th overall in 16 minutes, 21.9 seconds. Also scoring for the Lions were sophomore
Brett Olivier (14
th, 16:39.7), senior
Stephen Cassingham (16
th, 16:50.7), freshman
Bryant White (18
th, 17:03.8) and sophomore
Salvatore Grizzaffi (20
th, 17:05.7).
Junior
Clarissa Smith came in third for the Lady Lions in 19:05.5. Completing the scoring for Southeastern were junior
Allie Stone (15
th, 21:27.2) and sophomores
Amber Ferguson (17
th, 21:34.0), Jaslyn Bowman (38
th, 25:22.0) and Dakayta Alex (39
th, 25:31.7).
Freshman
Lill-Ann Hochkeppler is also scheduled to compete in her first collegiate meet on Saturday.
"Coach (Rocky) Capello has done a great job preparing these guys and we'll know after tomorrow exactly what we will be bringing into the championship because we'll have everybody on board," Brady said.
Southeastern will compete in the Southland Championships, scheduled for Friday, Oct. 28, at Pine Acres City Park in Nacogdoches, Texas.
