The Mississippi State men’s and women’s cross country teams tuned up for this weekend’s SEC Championships by taking a nice stroll through the woods with a few of their invited guests in the MSU Short Course Invitational. The men ran a 5K and 6K race while the women ran a 3K instead of the usual 8K for the men and 6K for the women. “The race distance is half of what we run for SEC’s so it is a little easier,” said Zita Magloire. “We were thinking of it more as a workout than a race because we workout here all the time.”
Magloire and the rest of the Lady Bulldogs capitalized on the home field advantage and captured the women’s title with 25 points. They were followed by the University of Alabama and the University of Southern Mississippi in a tie for second place with 50 points. Jacksonville State University finished fourth with 103 points.
Lady Bulldogs took the top three individual spots. Magloire paced the women with a first place finish in a career-best 10:26.18. She was followed by fellow Bullies Jennifer McPherson(10:26.75) and Meggan Hodge(10:30.71).
“The three of them work well together,” said women’s head coach Al Schmidt. “They’ve been working well together all season.”
The men failed to protect their turf the way the women did. MSU finished last in both the 5K and 6K. Alabama won the 5K title while Jacksonville State went for the 6K title by putting seven runners in that race and four runners in the 5K.
“I put my top seven in the first race and the next seven in the second race trying to win both,” said men’s head coach Steve Dudley. “If we’d only run one race today it would have been very close between all three teams.”
Alabama took the 5K title with 18 points while Jacksonville State and MSU had 26 and 34, respectively. In the 5K race, Gedamu Ege was the top Bulldog finisher finished in fifth place with a time of 15:24.78. Ege edged out Phillip Moore who finished sixth in a time of 15:24.98.
MSU fared better in the 6K race as sophomore Ryan Irwin got his first collegiate win in a time of 19:35.37. Prior to Friday’s race, Irwin’s best career finishes came in 2003 with 12th-place finishes at the Sewanee Invitational and the Bulldog Invitational.
Jacksonville State took top honors in the two-team race with 16 points while MSU finished behind them with 20.
“He (Irwin) definitely solidified a spot on the SEC team next weekend (with the win).”
Also finishing in the Top 10 for MSU were Will McGee(fifth), Kevin Coch (eighth) and Pad Judd(tenth).
The MSU Short Course Invitational was a sweet homecoming for Jacksonville State head coach Heath Dudley. Heath competed at MSU in 2000. He is also the brother of Steve Dudley.
The Dudley brothers have split their races this season with two wins each. Steve took the top spot at the Memphis Twilight Classic and Auburn Invitational, and Heath evened the record by taking two wins Friday.
“We’ve been coaching against each other all year,” Steve said. “I don’t like getting beat but if I’m going to lose I’d rather lose to my brother.”