SFA Cross Country Races at Southland Conference Championships this Friday

Friday, October 26

Lake Charles, Louisiana

ALL DAY

Stephen F. Austin

SLC Championships

SFA Cross Country Races at Southland Conference Championships this Friday

10/25/2018 1:57:00 PM | Men's Cross Country, Women's Cross Country

By: Kevin Meyer | Assistant Director of Athletic Media Relations

Stephen F. Austin at Southland Conference
Cross Country Championship
Enos Darbonne Multi-Sport Complex
Friday, October 26
8:30 A.M CST
Watch

LAKE CHARLES, La. – The men and women of the Stephen F. Austin cross country team will have an opportunity to showcase the fruits of their labors this fall come Friday, when they will compete in the 2018 Southland Conference Cross Country Championship in Lake Charles, Louisiana. The title races are hosted by McNeese and will take place at the Enos Darbonne Multi-Sports complex, with the women's 6K race beginning at 8:15 a.m. and the men's 8K taking place at 9:15 a.m.

A live stream of both races will be provided by the Southland Conference, and can be found on the Southland Conference Facebook page, or by following the link above. Fans are also encouraged to follow the SFA Track and Field/Cross Country accounts on both Twitter (@SFA_TFXC) and Instagram (@sfa_tfxc) for additional content.

A total of 15 runners will travel to compete for SFA, with seven men and eight women filling out the team's race-day roster. The Lumberjacks will be represented by Awet Beraki, Titus Kiplagat, Erick Rotich, Pedro Flores, Grant Tiff, Max Murphy and Chris Shirk. The women's team consists of Taryn Surratt, Claire Crone, Kelsey Ramirez, Elizabeth Guerra, Christina Hernandez, Alexis Antkowiak, Carolyn Evans and LaSean Davis.

Conditions at the Enos Darbonne Complex might end up posing their own challenges for the field of runners, as rainfall in the area has traditionally left the course muddy and harder to traverse.

"We competed in Lake Charles five years ago in the conference meet, and it had rained earlier that day and by the time of the race the course was an absolute mess", said SFA cross country coach Brionne Clark. It was muddy, there were standing puddles of water to run through and with the amount of rain they've gotten we're expecting similar conditions this week. It's going to be a tough day out there running through the mud, but everyone has to deal with is so it all comes down to who handles it best."

Competition at the Arturo Barrios invitational two weeks back was a decent barometer of how SFA's lineup stacked up against a handful of Southland programs also competing in that race, but there remains plenty of unknown heading into what figures to be a tight conference race.

"When we competed two weeks ago at Texas A&M it was a really good race for us at that point in the season", added Clark. "It put us in a good position to compete well in the Southland meet. We know who our competition is on both sides, and we know where we need to place our top five runners to have a shot at winning either race. It's all going to come down to our fourth and fifth runners, where they end up is going to be big for us."

-SFA-