Forced to sit out last season after taking a redshirt, cross country junior Richard Chautin is making up for lost time in a big way.
With temperatures reaching into the 90s, Chautin followed up his medalist performance in the Bulldog Invitational with a second-place finish in the LSU Invitational on Saturday.
Chautin completed the 8K course in 25 minutes, 58.90 seconds. He was part of a three-man group that broke away from the pack with a blistering opening mile, but he finished 20 seconds behind Southeastern Louisiana junior Henry Rop, who surged ahead in the final mile.
“What can you say about Richie?” said LSU coach Mark Elliott. “I think he’s assuming his role as being the best guy on the team, and he’s running well.”
His performance Saturday helped the Tigers finish runner-up in their only home meet of the year. The team hierarchy is beginning to take shape as senior Tim Landry and junior Cullen Doody were LSU’s second and third finishers, respectively, for the second consecutive time.
Landry crossed the line in 26 minutes, 43.54 seconds. His sixth-place finish was a career-best performance.
“I’m learning to count on Tim,” Elliott said. “He’s doing extremely well.”
The Lady Tigers came in fourth, aided by top-10 individual finishes from junior Laura Carleton and sophomore Brea Goodman, as well as strong results from sophomores Dakota Goodman and Leigh-Ann Naccari and senior Lauren Ybarzabel, who finished 20th, 21st and 22nd, respectively.
Carleton’s sixth-place time of 21 minutes, 24.28 seconds was a career-best at the 6K distance. It was her third consecutive race as the top finisher for the Lady Tigers, including the final competition of the 2009 season.
After listening to Elliott, however, it would be easy to confuse the results of the two teams.
Addressing his runners after the meet, Elliott praised the women for their effort but chastised the men, who had several runners drop out of the race.
“The women [showed improvement] for sure,” Elliott said. “The men in the top six did, but I was not pleased with seventh, eighth, ninth and some of the kids who did not finish.”
Chautin said the heat hurt his chances for back-to-back wins.
“It was just so damn hot,” he said. “I probably went out a little faster last week. I just couldn’t hold on to it as well today. That could have been due to a lot of factors like the heat or the training we’ve done this week.”
Runners also had to deal with slight changes to this year’s course because of construction at Highland Road Park. Elliott said the adjusted route had an extra hill.
“I think our course, while it doesn’t seem challenging, it really is,” he said. “It breaks up your rhythm when you’re running.”
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Contact Ryan Ginn at [email protected]