FGCU XC: Paul Short Run Recap

The FGCU men's and women's cross country teams finished in 25th (women) and 31st (men) in the 45th annual Paul Short Run, hosted by Lehigh University. The individual winner of the meet for the women was senior Siobhan Quinn of Canisus College, and the overall winner of the meet was Siena College. On the men's side, redshirt junior Peter Seufer, Jr of Virginia Tech won the overall meet as an individual and Utah State would win the overall meet.

"The men's team qualified for the Elite Gold race, while the outcome was not what we wanted, we had a few newcomers step up which was good to see," said head coach Cassandra Goodson. "We have a lot to learn from this experience. The women's team qualified for the Brown race. Overall the women helped each other when they were on the course, which we work on in practice. Both teams are very young and eager to get stronger as a team."

On the women's side, senior Carley Lutzow paved the way with a third place finish in a time of 21:25. The time was just 23 tenths of a second short of the first place overall runner. This was Lutzow's second race of the season – she opened up the 2018 slate capturing first at the FAU Invite nearly one month ago.

In the men's field, sophomore Lucas Kiprotich paced the Green and Blue in the 8k race, etching a time of 25:34 for a 90th place finish. Not too far behind him was grad student Ronny Greenup, who crossed the finish line with a mark of 25:52 for a 133 finish. After five runners, the men collected 837 points, placing them 31st out of 41 squads in the field.

Lutzow's time today gave her another spot inside the FGCU record book among the top 6k results. Coming into today the senior held the No. 3 time (21:14.90) and now holds the No. 5 time. Meanwhile, Kiprotich also landed in the record books for top 8k times among FGCU sophomores as his mark put him fourth overall.

"It's always nice to see our teams improve our record books," added Goodson. Carley and Lucas both work very hard and care deeply about these teams. It's great to see their hard work pay off"

Up Next:
The Eagles will have about two weeks off before heading up to Tallahassee, FL to compete in the FSU Invitational. It will be the last regular season meet for FGCU before traveling to the Bronx, NY for the A-SUN Championships which take place on Friday, Oct. 26.