Oct. 16, 2004
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - In their final warm-up before the Atlantic Sun Championships, the UCF men's and women's cross country teams performed well against tough competition at the Chili Pepper Cross Country Festival on Saturday morning.
The Golden Knight men finished 22nd out of 33 complete teams with 617 points and an average time of 33:10.6. Freshman Jake Wilke was the squad's No. 1 runner with a time of 32:22.0 in the 10K- beating UCF's old freshman record by 31 seconds. Sophomore Brent White finished at 116th at 33:01.3 followed by his brother Ryan at 125th with a time of 33:09.0.
Junior Chuck Jones and freshman Paul Fitzpatrick also ranked among the top 150 runners placing 142nd and 145th respectively. Rounding out the UCF lineup were seniors Kiley Blake in 155th and Brian Sharbono in 161st.
On the ladies' side, the Knights finished 25th in a field of 30 teams. Junior Astrid Claessens was the top runner in 72nd place with an A-Sun leading time of 22:49 in the 8K. She was followed by freshman Allison Palmer with a time of 23:37 and redshirt freshman Kristen Zieminski at 24:22. Freshman Elizabeth Miller finished at 24:45 and sophomore Christina Jones ran the course in 25:14.
"I am really pleased with our performance," said UCF head coach Marcia Mansur-Wentworth. "This will give us a great boost entering the conference championships."
The A-Sun Championship meet, which is hosted by Belmont, will take place on Oct. 30 in Nashville, Tenn.