Oct. 16, 2010
FAYETTEVILLE, ARK. -- Auburn's cross country teams had a day full of personal bests at the Chile Pepper Cross Country Festival in Fayetteville, Ark., Saturday. The Tigers recorded seven personal-best times at the Agri Park Cross Country Course on the University of Arkansas' campus.
The women finished in tenth-place and the men came in 17th. Oklahoma State won the team titles for both the men and women.
In the women's 5K run, Holly Knight led the way for the Tigers. Knight, a senior from Devon, England, ran a season best 16:50.25 to finish third.
"Today was a big test for Holly, and she had to battle hard against some top competition," head coach Mark Carroll said. "This was her fastest time of the season, and puts her in a great position heading into SECs."
Stephanie Barnes was the Tigers second runner to cross the line, and did so in personal-best fashion. Barnes ran 17:24.29 to finish 17th. Allison Smith and Elaina Turley also had personal-best times finishing in 18:10.92 and 19:18.18 respectively.
"Allison (Smith) and Elaina (Turley) ran very well today," Carroll said. "It was a very good personal-best."
For the men's team, Ben Cheruiyot had the top performance for Auburn finishing in fifth-place. Cheruiyot ran a personal-best 10K time of 29:21.06.
"Oklahoma State is a national championship team and they came out ready to roll," Carroll said. "Ben missed a very aggressive move at the three mile mark, and had a lot of work to do to catch up. But he battled back, and learned a good lesson today."
Joby Peake ran a personal-best 31:10.19 and Jeff Sanders set a new pr in 31:19.26 to finish as Auburn's No. 2 and No. 3 runners for the day. "Joby (Peake) and Jeff (Sanders) both had good PR's for this long run, and have a very good day," Carroll said.
Auburn will have two weeks away from competition to prepare for the SEC Cross Country Championships in Columbia, S.C., Nov. 1.