Mburu Leads Mustangs At Pre-National Invitational

Friday, October 16

Terre Haute, IN / LaVern Gibson Cross Country Course

TBA

SMU

Pre-National Invitational

Race Notes

Oct 16 | Cross Country

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (SMU) - The SMU cross country team finished in 18th at the Pre-National Invitational in Terre Haute, Indiana, on Friday.

The Mustangs competed against seven ranked teams, including No. 1 NC State, No. 2 BYU and No. 7 Notre Dame.

Rose Mburu was the first Mustang to finish, crossing the line at 19th out of 322 runners, with a time of 19:53.5. Mburu has finished first overall twice this season at the TCU John McKenzie Invitational and Texas A&M Invitational.

Mary Nyangate (20:44.1) and Carolina Correia (21:00.8) finished 76th and 109th, respectively, within 30 seconds of each other.

Following, Ruby Little came in 130th with a time of 21:06.9. To round out the point total of 474, Elizabeth Smits finished with a time of 21:15.4 in 155th place.

All five scorers finished within the top half of the field.

"Today was a good step for us," Head Coach A' Havahla Haynes states, "We talked all week about competing through the entire 6k, and our women did that. We moved from 28th at 2k to 18th at the finish. Rose gave us a great front-end performance, and the rest of the group kept fighting and moving forward. We finished with five women between 19:53 and 21:15, and now the challenge is to keep compressing that gap. We know there is more in this team. That's what makes championship season exciting. We are not finished, and our standard is to keep getting better."

Within the second race of the day, Erika Kirk competed as an individual with a time of 21:55.7.

SMU will compete at the ACC Cross Country Championships in Blacksburg, Va. on Oct. 30.

TEAM RESULTS

1	(2) BYU	84
2	(1) NC State	88
3	(7) Notre Dame	213
4	(23) Clemson	229
5	(19) North Carolina	249
6	(30) Duke	260
7	Indiana	324
8	(29) Boston College	341
9	Villanova	376
10	Kentucky	380
11	Vanderbilt	415
12	Syracuse	435
13	Michigan	440
14	Auburn	443
15	Wyoming	447
16	Connecticut	463
17	North Dakota	470
18	SMU	474
19	Utah Valley	550
20	Florida State	551
21	Utah State	562
22	Lipscomb	584
23	Colorado St.	598
24	Penn	610
25	Liberty	620
26	Illinois	679
27	Arizona	692
28	Montana State	748
29	Pittsburgh	749
30	Kansas	784
31	Western Michigan	803
32	Ole Miss	819
33	CBU	853
34	Portland	859
35	Saint Louis	899
36	Iona	902
37	Indiana State	992
38	Loyola (Ill.)	1021
39	Quinnipiac	1049
40	Ohio	1078
41	Miami (Ohio)	1109
42	South Dakota St.	1155
43	Dayton	1259

INDIVIDUAL MUSTANG RESULTS

19 Rose Mburu - 19:53.5
76 Mary Nyangate - 20:44.1
109 Carolina Correia - 21:00.8
130 Ruby Little - 21:06.9
155 Elizabeth Smits - 21:15.4
186 Georgia Bell - 21:27.9
194 Poppy Elton - 21:30.9
219 Paulina Kicilinska - 21:42.6