The Southern University men’s and women cross country team started the season with victories over Prairie View A&M last in Shreveport.
The women came away with a score of 41-18 score over the Lady Panthers and Southern’s male squad struggled to beat the Panthers with a score of 30-28.
“Our first meet this year was testing. It let us know what we needed to work on right now and the mental state of the team,” senior distance runner Charles Moon said. “They (Prairie View) are trying to think like champions rather than underdogs and thinking like underdogs is what has made us a championship winning team.”
In the 2.5 mile run, five of the six Lady Jaguars finished in the top six places. Junior Erikka Thomas led the pack with the best overall time of 13:16:01, followed closely by freshman Fantashia Cooper.
Coming in fourth, fifth and sixth were junior Rayla Hunt, sophomore Jovanni Anderson and senior Francella Williams, respectively.
“This week, I did pretty well coming in at sixth place. I felt very good with my time as well,” said Williams. “I plan on being a big help to the team because we have championships to win.”
Moon led the men’s team in their victory with a time of 18:34.12 and sophomore Darnell Parker was following with a time of 18:35.06 in the 3.2 mile run. Close behind was freshman Erik Henneghan and Prairie View locked up the next five finishes in the race
Jags sophomore Anthony Lee saved the victory for Southern by coming in tenth.
Now that the Jags have a taste of what their division has to offer, they will head to Hattiesburg, Miss. on September 12 for the Southern Mississippi Invitational.
