Cross Country Competes at 2021 C-USA Championships

Saturday, October 30

Charlotte, N.C.

10 AM

Florida Atlantic

Conference USA Championships

10/30/2021 3:23:00 PM | Men's Cross Country, Women's XC/Track & Field

Women's Results (6K)Men's Results (8K)

CONCORD, N.C. – The Florida Atlantic University men's and women's cross country teams wrapped up the 2021 Conference USA Cross Country Championships on Saturday morning at Frank Liske Park in Concord, North Carolina. Madlen Kappeler led the women's side with 21st place to earn All-C-USA Third Team honors, as the team finished in ninth out of 13 squads. Preston Dunn was the top finisher for the men with 46th place with the FAU men finishing in 11th place.

Quick Hits

Women (6K)

Kappeler led the Owls with a 21st finish (21:58.5) out of 98 runners to be named to the All-C-USA Third Team. This marks the third consecutive year Kappeler has been awarded with All-Conference honors
Jordan Stevens was the next Owl to cross the finish line, coming in at 50th place with a time of 23:11.4
Casey O'Connor tallied 53rd place with a personal record time of 23:16.7
Paige Saiz was the fourth Owl finisher with 58th place (23:34.9) and Morgan Sharp followed in 62nd (23:43.7)
Erin Shannon earned a personal record time of 24:17.7
The women's team finished in ninth place with a score of 234, just seven points behind eighth-place UAB

Men (8K)

Preston Dunn was the top Owl finisher for the fourth consecutive race this season, clocking in at 26:30.7 for 46th place out of 85 competitors
Bodey Miller was the second FAU finisher to log 78th place. The freshman shaved over three minutes off his time to record a new personal record of 28:16.1
Jericho Cooey followed in 79th with a time of 28:35.2
Rory Carmody was the fourth Owl to finish, logging 81st place and a time of 29:03.5
Matthew Labrato finished in 29:48.4 for 83rd place. The new personal record was over two minutes faster than his previous best time
Joseph Javurek (30:16.1) and Nicholas Van Graff (30:49.8) both picked up new personal records
The team finished in 11th with 325 points

Coach Smolka's Thoughts

On the Women's Team:
"We did not meet our team goal, and we're certainly not satisfied with finishing ninth, however, out of our eight runners this morning, seven ran season or lifetime PR's and we as a team ran over a minute faster than at FSU 2 weeks ago," said head coach Alex Smolka. "I told the team I was proud of our effort today and we certainly showed up on the day it counted most. We controlled the controllable but today, other teams just ran slightly faster. We have a young group and we're continuing to improve. The future is bright!"

On the Men's Team:
"I am very proud of how our guys executed the race this morning, all of them ran new personal or season bests," said Smolka. "We knew the team competition would be a steep uphill battle for us, but all of the guys ran the best race of the season at the conference championships, and that's all we could ask of them. They worked hard all season and ran the best times of the year when it counted most!"

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