In their final race before the Southeastern Conference championships, the LSU cross country teams didn’t put up a strong performance in the Chile Pepper Invitational at Fayetteville, Ark.The men’s team finished 25th out of 33 teams competing, and the women’s team finished 27th out of 37 teams.”There’s always a lot of tough competition [at the Chile Pepper Invitational],” said LSU coach Mark Elliott in a news release. “I just think as a team we’re not as strong as we want to be. With the SEC championships coming up and less teams participating, we’re looking forward to putting out a stronger performance.”The Tigers’ top finisher was sophomore Cullen Doody. Doody paced the Tigers for the third consecutive race and finished the 10K race in 32 minutes, 52.55 seconds. Doody has led the Tigers in every race this season.Five Tigers finished roughly a minute after Doody. Juniors Tim Landry, Kyle Hecker and Sean Swanner and sophomore Frank Bohn finished within 10 seconds of each other.Freshman Charlene Lipsey was the top finisher for the Lady Tigers. Lipsey clocked a 23-minute, 23.97-second finish in the 6K event. It was the first 6K race for the Lady Tigers this season.Three Lady Tigers set personal bests for the 6K at the Chile Pepper Invitational, including junior Lauren Ybarzabal, whose time was nearly two minutes faster than her time at last season’s Chile Pepper Invitational.The Tigers and Lady Tigers had three weeks off before the event, which made Elliott think the team was primed for success at the Chile Pepper Invitational.”I was a little disappointed with how the men finished,” Elliott said. “They were well rested; I think the distance got to them. The SEC meet is only an 8K, so hopefully they can put out their best race of the year there.”No. 4 Oklahoma State ran away with the men’s race. Oklahoma State sophomore Colby Lowe won the individual title for the race when he edged Oklahoma State senior John Kosgei by seven hundredths of a second.Oklahoma state claimed the top three individual spots in the men’s race and five out of the top 12 finishes.No. 20 Texas Tech won the Chile Pepper women’s race for the third consecutive year and claimed the top individual performer for the fourth straight year. Texas Tech junior Lillian Badaru won the individual title.LSU has an extra week off to rest and train before competing in the SEC championship meet on Halloween.——Contact Chris Branch at [email protected]