COLLEGE STATION, Texas -- Fueled by a pair of Top 70 individual outings from star runners Ceren Yilmaz and Elsa Rijpstra, the Nicholls State University cross country program laid the final key pieces of groundwork prior to late-October's SLC Championship via a solid showing at the Arturo Barrios Invitational, clinching 16th overall on the women's side -- good for third-best amongst Southland programs -- along with 31st with the men's team Saturday morning at the Dale Watts Cross Country Course in College Station, Texas.

For the women's squad, Yilmaz performed as admirably as she did two weeks ago in her gold medal finish at the Nicholls XC Invitational, pacing the Red & Gray behind a 21:49.4 time and a 60th ovearll individual placement. Trailing just behind the Turkish import, Rijpstra along with redshirt sophomore Elaina Hansen impressed with a pair of 6k personal records, securing 67th and 106th, respectively, on the final leaderboard. Senior Lara Reifers along with junior Skyler Goodman rounded out the scoring runners for the Colonels with personal bests as well, fighting late for 116th and 128th, respectively, in order to hold off a tough McNeese squad.

On the final team leaderboard, the women wrapped up the meet with 445 total points, good for 16th out of the 33 competing programs, as out-of-region Lipscomb secured the victory. Notably, the Red & Gray topped Southland adversary McNeese (17th) by a slim seven-point margin and only trailed UIW (14th) and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (11th) by 60 and 104 points, respectively.

"The women did well getting out aggressively in such a large, competitive field, especially Ceren and Elaina, who pulled out team out well," Nicholls head cross country coach Stefanie Slekis said. "We matched up well against our fellow Southland Conference opponents as well as many regionally-ranked opponents, and was even able to get the win over McNeese who entered the meet regionally ranked. We have a few things we can adjust to match up even better against Corpus Christi and UIW at the league championships in two weeks. Lara and Skyler raced very well closing down the gap on Elaina, so we had the best one through five spread we've seen this season."

On the men's side, senior transfer Mile Kanipe led the way for Nicholls with a 157th overall individual finish, closing out the day just nine seconds off his 8k personal record; meanwhile, fellow transfer Randy Canady pulled off 169th for the Colonels as the Texas native erased a full two minutes off his previous best at the 8k distance. The trio of Preston Whisenhunt, Dustin Worley and Alex Keller -- the latter of which also locked an 8k PR -- wrapped up the scoring runners for the Red & Gray, crossing the finish line at 218th, 239th and 241st, respectively.
 
For the final team rankings, the men closed out the morning in a tie for 30th amongst a field of 32 programs as the squad compiled 875 total points, concluding the meet only ahead of fellow Southland foe Northwestern State.

UP NEXT
With the regular season officially wrapped up, the Red & Gray shift focus to the highly-anticipated Southland Conference Cross Country Championships hosted by Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, slated for the morning of Friday, Oct. 29 in Corpus Christi, Texas.

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