Oct. 2, 2010

Men's Results (PDF)
Women's Results (PDF)

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - The Catamount men's and women's cross country teams completed the Charlotte Invitational with top-10 finishes on Friday, Oct. 1.

"We felt good about both of the performances from both the men's and women's team tonight," said Western Carolina head coach Danny Williamson. "We made a step in the right direction toward our goals and will continue to prepare for our next meet that we have in two weeks at Appalachian State."

Junior Josey Weaver led the Catamount men to a sixth-place finish out of a 22-team field, completing the 8K-event in a personal best time of 24:47.40 to finish third out of 206 runners. Weaver's finished with the fifth fastest time in WCU history in the 8K event. Nolan Clark ran a 25:49.10 in the race to finish 30th while sophomore Jake Swimmer placed 50th in a time of 26:17.40.

"We had some outstanding performances, especially in Josey Weaver with a third-place finish," said Williamson. "The back of our pack really picked it up tonight to help out in the final team standings. The three teams in front of us are regionally ranked and we had them in our sights all night, but we couldn't get ourselves in position to beat them."

Sophomores Tyler Dunn and Chase Fisher rounded out the top-five runners for the men, placing in 83rd (26:25.70) and 84th (26.27.00).

WCU finished the highest in the team standings from three participating Southern Conference members. The College of Charleston finished seventh while Wofford placed 13th.

Sophomore Morgan Turner paced the Catamount women with a 27th-place finish in a time of 18.13.80, the third fastest time in WCU history in the 5K event. WCU placed ninth out of 25 teams and placed second out of the five SoCon teams participating in the meet with the College of Charleston finishing seventh in the team standings.

Sophomore Mara Smith finished 68th (19:04.20) followed by Olivia Jacobs in 75th (19:11.60). The remaining top-five finishers for WCU were sophomore Leslie Raymond in 80th in a time of 19:15.90 and senior Jordan Gaddy in 86th, crossing the finish line in a time of 19:27.50.

"We had Morgan Turner, Leslie Raymond, Kaylan Lance, Jocelyn Keen, Alyse Childress and Hayley Tomlinson all established lifetime best in the 5K event," said Williamson. "We had a huge gap between our 1-2-3 runners and that hurt our opportunities in scoring higher as a team. We need to do a much better job of not having such a gap in the future, but we made a step forward towards our goals for the season."

The Catamount cross country squads return to action on Friday, Oct. 15 at the Blue Ridge Open in Boone, N.C.