In its strongest finish in years, the LSU women’s cross country team placed seventh at the Southeastern Conference championship meet on Friday at Vanderbilt.
LSU coach Mark Elliott said the team ran well but he was disappointed and felt they could have finished higher within the conference.
“We didn’t finish where we wanted as a team,” Elliott said. “If a couple of the girls finished in the position they normally would have, I think we could have gotten up to third or fourth.”
The Lady Tigers had not finished in the top 10 at the conference meet since 2007 and had finished last as a team two of the last four seasons.
Senior Laura Carleton led the Lady Tigers and finished No. 12 overall.
“I was a little disappointed,” Carleton said. “Because my time improved I don’t have any hard evidence I ran poorly, but I just think I could have improved more.”
Carleton’s time of 21:02.22 was good enough to make her a Second Team All-SEC runner.
“You could tell Laura was disappointed,” Elliott said. “I think she wanted to run maybe 20 seconds faster.”
The next Lady Tigers to cross the finish line were junior Natoya Goule at No. 24 and senior Charlene Lipsey at No. 40.
Florida won the team competition, while Kentucky junior Cally Macumber won the individual race.
On the men’s side, the Tigers finished last out of the 13 schools that competed.
“I thought we could have beaten a couple of teams,” Elliott said. “We were close, but again team wise it just did not happen for us. The conference is tough and all of these teams really compete.”
Senior Roger Cooke led the team and finished No. 69 overall with a time of 25:41.68. Elliott said it was Cooke’s personal best for an eight kilometer race.
Sophomores Philip Primeaux and William Weisler were the only other Tigers to finish in the top 100, placing No. 87 and No. 93, respectively.
Arkansas won the men’s meet, and Texas A&M senior Henry Lelei finished first individually.
“Overall I am pretty happy with the way the teams have run,” Elliott said. “Both teams have improved their times all season and we just need to keep it going heading into the NCAA regional in a couple weeks.”
