LAKELAND, Fla.- Leena Saidi, Eden Toal, and Ally Jakubiak led the NSU women's cross country team to a 2nd place team finish at the SSC Cross Country Championships, their highest finish since the program captured second place at the 2012 SSC Cross Country Championships. On the men's side, the Sharks earned a fifth-place team finish.
Head Coach Jonathan Carter - Coach Debastos and I are extremely proud of the men's and women's performances today. The men improved their finish from last year by earning a fifth-place finish. The women outperformed the preseason rankings and displayed great strength throughout the race, many of the women set personal bests as well. Today our teams performed Sharktacular!
(Women's 6K)
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Saidi was the main catalyst for the Sharks success. The junior finished 2nd with a personal best time of 21.40.0, which was 2.6 seconds behind first and the highest individual finish for an NSU Shark in the last six years.
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Toal and Jakubiak rounded out the top ten finishers for NSU. Toal who finished 8th at last year's conference meet, improved to fifth place, running a personal best time of 22:10.9. Jakubiak was right behind her, finishing 6th with a personal record of 22:11.4
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Nicole Branum (19th/23:14.1) and Isabella Grant (24th/23:30.6) were also in the top 25.
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Saidi, Toal, and Jakubiak's top-10 finishes earned them a spot on the All-Championship Team and All-SSC First-Team honors.
(Men's 8K)
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On the men's side, Marcus Tortorella was the highest finisher for the Sharks, finishing 24th with a time of 26:02.7
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David Mahnke and Adrien Zambaux rounded out the top three for the Sharks.
RESULTS
The Sharks will gear up for the NCAA South Region Championship, racing begins Saturday, November 4th in Montevallo, Al.
