Cross Country: Cajuns Solid In Cross Country Debut At McNeese Relay

LAKE CHARLES – Beau Robinson and newcomer Stanley Limoh combined to earn a first-place finish in the men’s eight-kilometer relay while Courtney Musgrove and Claire Hodges paced the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns cross country team on the women’s side with a third-place performance on Friday at the McNeese State Relay at the Enos Derbonne Sports Complex.

The season-opening meet was dual scored with Louisiana, which was picked to finish fourth in the Sun Belt Conference men’s cross country poll, earning a win over Northwestern State in the men’s event while being edged by LSU (11-12) and McNeese State (10-12). The Ragin’ Cajuns, who were selected to finish 10th in the women’s SBC Preseason Poll, posted a 2-1 mark in the 6-kilometer race, earning wins over McNeese State (10-11) and Northwestern State (10-15) with LSU earning a 7-10 win.

“You go through the first meet and really don’t know what you have and you want to see how good of shape everybody is in,” head coach Lon Badeaux said. “We knew we had a couple of good runners, so we stacked them together and really thought we had a chance to win the meet and they did.

“The rest of it was a mixed bag … some people ran faster and some ran slower. But we know we’re in better shape than we were last year, but we still have a lot of work to do.”

Robinson and Limoh each ran a four-kilometer leg and posted a time of 25:22 to defeat the second-place team by over 30 seconds. Christian Bergeron and Bryce Robinson combined to finish in seventh with a time of 26:45, followed by Jacob Chicola and Dylan Heck (9th, 27:38), Matt Rice and Marvin Hebenbrock (10th, 27:55) and Cole Stafford and John-Paul Bergeron (15th, 29:11).

“The girls were solid, they just went out there and did what they did,” Badeaux said. “We’re thin there and we can’t afford anybody to not run well. For the most part, they did what they did, and if they can get a little bit better, they’re going to be higher than what they were picked to finish (in the Sun Belt Conference) this year.”

Musgrove and Hodges covered the 6K course in 21:50 to finish in third place with Courtney Broussard and Lindsay LeGarde finishing sixth (22:13) and Kaylei Esfeller and Alexa Breaux 10th (23:17).

Louisiana will return to action on Friday (Sept. 9) when it travels to Houston to compete in the Rice Invitational.

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