Spartanburg, S.C. – Led by a freshman 8k record and a top 10 finish in the regular season finale, the Western Carolina cross country team closed their regular season posting strong team finishes across the board at the Upstate Invitational. The Catamount men's squad secured its second consecutive second-place finish at the event, while the women's team pushed for a fourth-place finish, their best team finish of the season so far.
"Pretty excited about our team efforts this morning. After a long training break, it was nice to race again. Felt like we did a good job competing today, even with a pretty high workload this week," said head coach
Jesse Norman. "We'll start gently pulling back our intensity and density of training, and should be ready to rock at conference. Excited about Matthias getting the freshman record."
As Coach Norman mentioned, Catamount freshman
Matthias Peterson secured the WCU freshman men's 8K record, taking a 25:17.5 finish in the event and surpassing the previous freshman best set by
Justin Hayes' 25:35.3 finish in 2021 at the ASICS Cross Country Invitational. The Roanoke, Texas native was the second finisher of WCU's scoring five, with
Chase Thurber leading the team after a 24:54.4 finish, taking 16th. Thurber was led by Peterson, freshman
Jaleb Saunders, who would have held the freshman record with a 25:29.7 finish,
Matthew Womack, and another freshman,
Eli Clonch. WCU's scoring five all finished within the top 45 competitors.
WCU's women's team was led by
Katherine Hopkins, who took tenth overall with an 18:06.5 5K.
Peyton Skoglund (18:31.0) and Braelyn Shae-Wahy (18:35.0) both moved up WCU's all-time top 30 list in the 5K as well with their finishes.
Amaya Hicks (18:55.6) and
Grace Lane (19:09.9) rounded out WCU's scoring five and the top-four team finish with Hicks shaving nearly 30 seconds off her previous personal best.
The Catamounts outclassed the next closest Southern Conference full team finisher in both races, recording 156 points in the women's 5K to UNCG's 242, with the Spartans taking 7th overall. Similarly, the WCU men's team earned a total of 116 points, with The Citadel being the closest finishing conference foe after a 369-point, 11th-place performance.
Up Next for The Catamounts:
The Catamounts will be back in action for the Southern Conference Cross Country Championships in Mill Springs, N.C., on Nov. 1. They'll then look to compete against the top teams in the South Region as they head back to Charlottesville, Va., for the 2025 NCAA Southeast Regional on Nov. 14.
