THIBODAUX, La. - The Nicholls State University cross country teams began their season with fifth place performances at the UNO Opener, at Lake Oaks Park, in New Orleans on Friday.

The Nicholls women's squad had three individuals place within the top 30. Senior Elsa Rijpstra led the way finishing the 4k course in a personal-best 13:43.55 to earn sixth place. She was one of 10 individuals to record a time under 14 minutes. The second Colonel to cross the finish line was junior Megan Nevlud who ran the race in 14:22.19 to claim 19th place, while classmate Elaina Hansen finished 27th with a personal-best time of 14:45.77.

Like the women, the Nicholls men's unit had three individuals finish within the top 30. The first Colonel to cross the finish line was sophomore Luke Futey who ran the 5k course in 15:39.88 minutes. Finishing in just over 16 minutes, junior Randy Canady (16:00.71) and graduate student Dustin Worley (16:01.15) finished 26th and 27th, respectively.

On the team score sheet the Colonel women finished ahead of Southeastern and Dillard with 117 points, while the Nicholls men finished in front of Loyola-New Orleans and Southeastern with 132 points.

Head Coach Stefanie Slekis spoke about why this meet was important.

"The goal at the opener since we race well under our championship race distances is to be aggressive and remember what it feels like for the race to hurt and manage being uncomfortable," Slekis said.

Slekis also talked about the Colonel's top performers.

"Elsa did this really well being aggressive in the front group from the start, she faded to 9th during the middle, but rallied very well to close in 6th place managing well how the early fast pace hits you," Slekis stated. "Luke also went with the front group and our entire team got out faster through the mile than anything we've done in training yet."

Slekis spoke about the Colonel's training up to this point and what will be different moving forward.

"This early in the season we are still doing a tremendous amount of volume in training and doing a lot of strength workouts where we focus on being progressive," Slekis said. "I'm really looking forward to our next training block and some of the faster interval sessions we have coming up as we start to add more goal race pace work to our training while still maintaining pretty high volume the next month."

UP NEXT
After a few weeks off, the Colonels return to action on Sept. 17, as they host the Nicholls XC Invitational at Nicholls Farm.