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Results (SMU vs. Baylor)

WACO, Texas (SMU) – Despite a delay due to lightning in the area, the SMU women's cross country team opened the 2016 season with five Mustangs finishing in the top-10 Thursday evening at the Heart of Texas Soccer Complex.

The event was almost cancelled due to lightning in the area that made meet organizers remove all participants from the field of competition at 5:45 p.m. The threat of lightning didn't clear until 7:11 p.m. and at that time the decision was made to give teams an abbreviated warmup time and start the women's race at 7:40 p.m.

Freshman Charlotte-Tara Murphy led a trio of Mustangs as she finished the 4-kilometer course third with a time of 13 minutes, 53.9 seconds. Senior Holly Archer placed fourth in a personal-best time of 13:54.1, while freshman Hannah Miller finished fifth in her first collegiate race in a time of 13:58.6. Sophomore Rakel Barrientos also ran a personal-best time of 14:12.2 as she finished eighth, while senior Justine Anthony placed ninth (14:21.2).

Sophomore Anneke Grogan was the third Mustang to record a personal-best on the evening as she finished 11th overall with a time of 14:29.8 and graduate student Marlene Gomez-Islinger placed 13th (14:31.5)

"The team opened up really well under the circumstances today having to deal with the weather, but overall I think they handled it well and it was a great effort by everyone," head coach Cathy Casey said. "We had a tough couple of weeks of training and tonight was about putting on the uniform and remembering how to race again."

In a change from previous years, the team portion of the race was scored as a dual-meet where teams faced off against one another head-to-head instead of being judged against the entire field. Not all teams went head-to-head with two teams.

SMU went 0-1 in their only head-to-head contest with a close loss to Baylor (29-28).

The Mustangs compete next week at the Gerald Richey Invitational at UT Arlington Saturday, Sept.10 at 8 a.m.