The Mississippi State women’s cross country team captured the state’s first regional championship this weekend, by one point over No. 14 Ole Miss.
Head coach Houston Franks was ecstatic about the way they performed, and said he knew his team wanted the victory out there.
“We ran with some unbelievable tenaciousness and toughness today,” Franks said. “That was fun to watch. We really got in there and were aggressive. We raced to win.”
The victory was secured by freshman Stephanie Peterson, MSU’s sixth place runner. She made a push right past Ole Miss’ fifth place runner and got the Bulldogs to their second straight trip to Nationals.
Senior All-American runner Rhianwedd Price led the Bulldogs by finishing in fifth place in the 6K run with a time of 20:16.1, which earned MSU four points. Shannon Fair placed well with a time of 20:26.9, which earned her a 13th place finish and 12 points.
The Bulldogs had five members of the team finish in the Top 25 and all five of them landed on the All-Region team. Price, Fair, Ffion Price, Antonia Hehr and Mia Meydrich all earned the honor and ran well.
This win puts the Bulldogs in Terre haute, Ind. Saturday, Nov. 19 for the NCAA Championships and they are looking to win the first team national title in Mississippi State history.
The Bulldogs won with a total of 66 points, beating No. 14 Ole Miss, who had 67, Vanderbilt, who had 138, Alabama, who had 177 and Georgia, who finished with 195.
“This is a huge step for us,” Franks said. “We were able to qualify last year for Nationals, and to do it once is hard. Doing it again a second year in a row is even more difficult. I have told people that our team is a ticking time bomb, in a good way. We were going to blow up and put a race together that would surprise some people. We got fourth in SEC Championships, and I am glad we are to a point in the program that we were disappointed with fourth. We put it together today and good things happened.”
The men’s team did not make it to Nationals and their season ended because of it. They placed 15th in the 24-team 10K. The men were paced by freshman Stephen Jones who finished with a time of 32:26.4, which gathered him 67 points.
