The Mississippi State men’s and women’s cross country teams embraced the home course advantage Saturday by dominating the competition en route to their victories at the MSU Invitational.The men’s team was coming off a second-place finish at the Crimson Classic in Tuscaloosa, Ala., last week, and its main focus was to sustain that momentum heading into the home meet.
The Bulldogs sustained that momentum and gained some extra in the process. Mississippi State runners represented 15 of the top 20 runners on the individual men’s leader board, including the top eight slots.
Men’s junior runner Jonathan Rono and freshman Ben Blankenship finished in first place and second place respectively for the team for the third meet in a row.
In addition to his first place finish Saturday, Rono also broke the MSU Cross Country Course record in the 6K race with a time of 18 minutes, 54.93 seconds.
Rono bested the previous record of 18 minutes, 55.40 seconds, which was held by former MSU runner Gedamu Ege.
“It was great and exciting [to break the record],” Rono said. “I can’t believe I did that.”
Men’s cross country head coach Steve Dudley was also proud of Rono’s record-breaking run.
“All guys in college or high school want to break records,” Dudley said. “Since he’s only a junior next year, hopefully next year he’ll break it again.”
The women’s squad also finished with a dominant performance in their 4K race.
The Lady Bulldogs completed the race with six runners in the top 10 on the scoreboard, including the top three runners.
Freshman Simone Domingue finished the race in first place with a time of 15 minutes, 12.65 seconds. The win was the first of Domingue’s collegiate career.
“It felt pretty nice to win,” Domingue said. “It felt really good for me to finish strong.”
Fellow freshman Sarah Hammes finished in second place with a time of 15:30.92. Senior Annie Falor, who was out of town for most of the week due to a family emergency and didn’t arrive in Starkville until late Friday, rounded out the top three with a time of 15:40.03.
Women’s head coach Al Schmidt said he was impressed with his squad’s performance Saturday.
“The course is a little longer than 4,000 meters, and those are two tough, big hills that they have to run on, so I’m really happy with it,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt was especially concerned with keeping the team together throughout the race after doing a lackluster job of doing that last week.
Brittany Detzel, Diamond Marks and Abbey Graham took care of those concerns this week by taking the sixth, seventh and eighth places at the meet.
The teams will now turn their focus to the Notre Dame Invitational on Friday.
“I’m proud of the guys but obviously next Friday is when the real season starts,” Dudley said. “These past few weeks have been preseason. The real season starts Friday.