The LSU women’s cross country team capped off a strong regular season with a fourth-place finish at the Chile Pepper Festival in Fayetteville, Ark., on Saturday.
Going into the tournament, LSU coach Mark Elliott said the 43-team event would feature the highest level of competition his team would see all season.
“The women ran awesome today,” Elliott said. “I think that is our highest finish ever in a large meet with this amount of competition.”
Senior Laura Carleton finished fourth individually, with a time 20:59.9 to continue a strong final season at LSU.
On the season, Carleton now has two victories and a fifth-place finish to go along with Saturday’s fourth-place result.
“I have never even come in the top 15 at this race,” Carleton said. “I was just aiming for the top 10 and to finish fourth feels amazing.”
The next-highest LSU finishers were junior Natoya Goule at No. 32, senior Dakota Goodman at No. 43 and senior Brea Goodman at No. 55.
The host No. 11 Arkansas Razorbacks won the meet, with Oklahoma senior Jess Engel finishing first individually.
The Lady Tigers will not run competitively again until the Southeastern Conference championship meet Oct. 26.
“I think our strong performances have given this team a lot of confidence,” Carleton said. “Now there are some expectations on our team and we need to go out and have a good showing at the championship meet.”
The LSU men finished No. 22 out of 34 men’s teams in the Tigers’ first 10k race of the season.
“Collectively as a race the team ran better,” Elliott said. “Our one through five guys ran as well as we think they can and we did extremely well considering the length and the level of competition at this meet.”
Senior Roger Cooke led the Tigers with a time of 33:00.7, which helped the No. 107 overall.
The next Tigers to cross the finish line were sophomores Philip Primeaux at No. 151 and Bryan Mutell at No. 160. Freshman Travis Pope finished No. 166.
“We don’t have that strong of a men’s team this year but they are young and they get better every week,” Elliott said. “At this point, we just need one more guy to step up so we can have a stronger, more balanced lineup for the conference race.”
