Nov. 12, 2011
TUSCALOOSA - Freshman Kane Grimster and senior Joby Peake both placed in the top 25 as the Auburn men's cross country team placed fourth at the NCAA South regional hosted by the University of Alabama.
"We had a really good day," head coach Mark Carroll said. "The guys lined up well and got in the thick of it from the first mile and held positions. We were ranked so low coming in that nobody gave us any respect and to come out fourth is a great result.
"Obviously, a lot of people see the result and know that at Auburn we can run with the best teams in the region. Like I said, for some reason, we were ranked fairly low in the region all season long. Overall, we came in here today fit and we did quite well as a result.
Grimster finished his first collegiate 10k in 31:46.5 and was one of just two freshmen in the top 20. Peake (31:48.6) wasn't too far behind, crossing the finish line 22nd, up 19 spots for his 41st place finish a year ago.
Another senior, Jeff Sanders, crossed the finish line 39th and posted a time of 32:32.2. Auburn's fourth finisher was Niklas Buhner in 52nd place (32:59.6) and rounding out the scorers for the Tigers was sophomore Samuel Mueller (33:17.3) in 62nd place.
Auburn totaled 194 points to finish fourth out of 24 teams.
In women's action, sophomore Elizabeth Briasco took a 25 meter lead in the opening stages of the race, but was reeled in by the competition and dropped back for a 40th place finish in 21:52.0 for the Tigers as they finished 15th in a field of 27 teams.
"The women were 15th, which wasn't bad at all, especially for a really young team," Carroll said. "I'm really glad that the young team got ot experience this high level of competition."
Junior Alissa Fisher crossed the finish line 74th in 22:27.3. Molly Pezzulo (79th, 22:32.3 - new PR), Erin Fondren (96th, 23:02.6) and Danielle Lusk (117th, 23:29.9) were the other scorers for Auburn.