The winning continues for the Baylor girls cross country team.
Racing in Oakville, Alabama at the 12th annual Jesse Owens Cross Country Invitational Saturday morning, senior Ruthie Townsend finished sixth overall in 19:45 to lead the Lady Red Raiders to a first-place finish with 107 points.
While the Baylor girls were racing in Alabama, the Baylor boys were in Orlando at Disney World for the ESPN Wide World Of Sports 5K.
Baylor senior Simon Holden was the overall winner in 16:06, just two seconds off his personal best.
Teammate Dillon Clemmer was 13th in 17:36 while Alex Sumida was 20th in 17:43, Jackson Goodwin 30th in 18:13 and Anders Pokela 73rd in 19:19 as the Baylor boys finished fourth.
It was a chaotic morning at the race site for the girls as heavy rain turned a normally beautiful course into a muddy quagmire. Add to that the fact the Baylor bus refused to start Saturday morning and it appears you have all the ingredients for a bad day, but that wasn't the case as Baylor won its fourth invitational title of the season.
With a huge field that included almost 400 runners representing more than 50 teams, Townsend was sixth while teammate Haley Chandler was 13th in 20:05.
Caitlin Duggan, Sydney Gautier, Adrienne Webb and Rachel Schatzman all followed with each recording personal bests as Baylor beat runner-up Chiles High School from Tallahassee by 11 points.
Duggan was 22nd in 20:24 while Gautier claimed 31st in 20:52. Webb was 35th in 21:00 while Schatzman was right behind in 39th with a time of 21:03.
Jennie Kwon completed the Baylor team with a time of 22:32, which was 110th.
"Our girls ran another awesome race today despite the conditions," said Baylor coach Heather Ott while sitting in a van waiting to get out of the parking area.
"We knew that Grace Carlson wasn't going to be here because of a pre-planned vacation, so the rest of the team had to step up and they did exactly that. These other girls had to take it to the next level and they did as they were all fired up.
"Our bus not starting kept us from getting there like we had planned, but they did their warming up on the road leading to the course as we got there about 30 minutes before the race started.
"We approach races like this as an opportunity to do something just a little bit better than we've done it before as we get ready for the state meet. We are running out of dress rehearsals, but the girls all ran great today and I'm so proud," Ott added.
While Chiles was a close second, D-II rival Harpeth Hall from Nashville was third with 171.
(Email John Hunt at nomarathonmoose@comcast.net)