BATON ROUGE, La. – Senior Hannah Naquin finished 16th at the LSU Invitational at Highland Road Park Saturday morning as the Nicholls State University men's and women's team competed.

"I am very proud of how both our men's and women's teams raced today," said Nicholls head coach Stefanie Slekis. "The course at Highland Park is challenging with a decent amount of hills and a lot turns, but we still had several members of our team race 10 to 25 seconds faster per mile than they raced just two weeks ago at UNO.

"The men did a great job increasing their race distance with all three of our top runners improving their pace even though the race distance increased by about a half mile."

Naquin's result was a 10-place improvement from the same meet last season.

"Hannah had a strong individual performance challenging herself from the start to run with the front pack," Slekis said. "I'm excited for us to have another two weeks to train before we see more Southland Conference and NCAA South Central Region opponents at the McNeese Cowboy Stampede." 

The women earned a sixth-place finish while the men placed eighth. Freshman John Paul Spera fronted the men for the second consecutive event, crossing the finish line at 20:20.0 right in front of sophomore Trey Lowery (42nd, 20:21.4).

Women's Team Results
1. Tulane [22]
2. LSU [53]
3. McNeese [74]
4. Southeastern Louisiana [104]
5. Loyola-New Orleans [165]
6. Nicholls [170]
7. Xavier (La.) [183]
8. Alcorn [196]

Women's Individual Results
16. Hannah Naquin [19:19.9]
30. Eleana Callejas [21:25.8]
38. Courtney Troxclair [22:34.9]
41. Taylor Douglas [23:16.5]
45. Lucija Barac [24:17.3]

Men's Team Results
1. Southeastern Louisiana [41]
2. McNeese [43]
3. LSU [62]
4. Tulane [75]
5. New Orleans [156]
6. Southern [167]
7. Loyola-New Orleans [177]
8. Nicholls [247]
9. Xavier (La.) [248]
10. Alcorn [258]

Men's Individual Results
41. John Paul Spera [20:20.0]
42. Trey Lowery [20:21.4]
51. Teril Cooper [22:38.5]
53. Tristan Breaux [23:06.2]
60. Daryl Cooper [27:46.5]

The Colonels return to action Sept. 30 in the McNeese Cowboy Stampede at Enos Derbonne Multisports Complex. The women begin the event at 8:45 a.m. with the men following at 9:15 a.m.

To stay up to date with the Nicholls cross country squads, follow the teams on twitter @Nicholls_XCTF.