Gamecocks Take First and Third, Post PRs at Carolina Challenge
COLUMBIA, S.C. – South Carolina women’s cross country’s Heather Stone and Hannah Twine placed first and third, respectively, both posting personal records on Saturday morning at the Carolina Challenge.
Opening the season on a strong note, Stone won the women’s individual title, besting her collegiate PR (17:45.8) by almost 20 seconds, finishing in 17:27.7.
Twine, a redshirt freshman, running in her first race since the Carolina Challenge a year ago, shattered her collegiate PR by almost a minute. She dropped her time to an 18:35.4 from a 19:28.7 for third place at the meet.
“I was very pleased that we raced aggressively,” cross country coach Andrew Allden said. “Heather in particular raced extremely aggressively and took it to Clemson right from the gun. We couldn’t quite hang on against them, which I was hoping we could do. I saw a lot of promise in terms of the entire team.”
As a team, Carolina placed second in the final standings, finishing with 34 points behind Clemson’s 24.
Competing in her first-ever cross country meet, freshman Hillary Neely ended fifth for the Gamecocks with a time of 19.16.6, good for 13th overall.
Freshman Cheyenne Young finished eighth in her first collegiate race, closing out the meet with a 19:03.9. Rounding out the top-10, Kelsey Larkin took 10th with a time of 19:12.1. All of the Gamecocks finished in the top-35 out of the field of 65 runners.
“I was pleased with the way a number of our freshmen ran. Cheyenne in her first collegiate race did a great job for us,” Allden said. “Hillary Neely did a great job for us in her first cross country race ever, running No. 5 for us. We had some really good performances by our young people.”
Up next, the Gamecocks get back to training for their next meet at the N.C. State Adidas Invite on Friday, September 20 at 5 p.m.
For more information on the Gamecocks, continue to check back with gamecocksonline.com. Subscribe to South Carolina on Stanza to get schedule updates directly in your calendars.
