South Carolina Finishes 18th at Southeast Regional

Nov. 14, 2014

Final Results

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The South Carolina cross country team closed out the 2014 season Friday afternoon at the NCAA Southeast Regional. The 6K course, held at E.P “Tom” Sawyer Park, featured 38 teams and 257 runners from the area. As she has done in all six of her races this season, junior Anna Todd crossed as the team’s top finisher, placing 39th overall. The Gamecocks would finish 18th overall as a team.

Classmate Stephanie Berger placed 101st with a time of 22:16, and redshirt freshman Meri Heneage finished 121st overall, but set a new personal best in 6K races after running in 22:28.5. That narrowly improved on her 22:29 finish at the Paul Short Invitational. Junior Christine Kent finished 125th with a time of 22:32.7. Freshman Monica York came just 0.4 seconds from also setting a new career time, crossing in 22:45.6 to finish 138th. Round out the group was freshman Regina Schreiber (175 overall, 23:11.3) and sophomore Ashley Miller (209, 23:51.9). Schreiber was a last-second addition to the lineup after Mary Reiser aggravated a previous injury during warm-ups.
Meet Changer: Todd clocked in with a time of 21:11.63, 15 seconds off a top-25 finish. She rallied to place in the top 40, rising 15 spots from 54th to 39th in the final half of the course. Her big jump in the final half was the second-best among top-50 runners, just behind Cleo Boyd of Virginia who went from 50th to 33rd.

Key Stat: Four of the team’s seven runners are either in their first or second year with the team. South Carolina has no seniors on the roster this season.

Notable: North Carolina’s Annie LeHardy won the overall title with a time of 20:13.4, but William & Mary won the team title for the region after placing five runners in the top 25.

Quotable: South Carolina Assistant Track and Field Coach for Distance/Cross Country Andrew Allden

“I think the times were solid, they were more in line with what we’ve been doing. I felt like we ran pretty well. Last year we finished 14th, so obviously I’m a little disappointed with the drop off, but with the athletes we had on the line we had good times. We really got hit by injuries towards the end of the season, and if we could have ran half those who were injured on the line today we would have had a much better result. I’m not disappointed, the team that we lined up ran well. I’m frustrated by the athletes we didn’t have on the line because of injuries. Next year we’ll return six of our top seven runners, so today was a good learning experience.”