The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga women’s cross country team got its season underway Friday night with a third place finish in the Jacksonville State Strut’s Season Opener at the JSU Race Course in Oxford, Ala.
“We all went out pretty strong and tried to stay in a pack,” junior Hannah Chamblin said. “It’s been a hard week and it was good for us to get out there and finish as a team. It was good for our first race.”
Chamblin (Memphis, Tenn.) led the Mocs with an 8th place finish followed by senior Jessica York (Normandy, Tenn.) two spots behind.
Chamblin covered the 4-kilometer course in a time of 14:49.3 while York posted a time of 14:59.8.
Freshman Kennedy Thomson (Catharine’s, Ontario), running in her first meet, was the third Chattanooga runner across the line placing 16th with a time of 15:07.5. Redshirt freshman Haley Morris (Lenoir City, Tenn.) covered the distance in a time of 15:22.5, placing 21st while senior Anna Kate Chance (Columbia, Tenn.) was the fifth scoring Moc to finish, placing 23rd in a time of 15:23.4.
Freshmen Julia Henderson (Brentwood, Tenn.) and Hannah Caldwell (Brentwood, Tenn.) placed 24th and 25th overall. Henderson posted a time of 15:24.4 and Caldwell covered the course in a time of 15:29.5.
Auburn placed four in the top five to win the Opener with 31 points. Georgia State was second with 68 points and three in the top 10 and Chattanooga was third with 78 points. The Mocs finished ahead of Southern Conference foes Samford and Mercer. The Bulldogs were fifth with 117 points follows by Mercer with 140 points for sixth.
The men’s team runs at 10 a.m. Saturday in Nashville at the Belmont Opener at Percy Warner Park. Both teams will return home to host the annual PowerAde Invitational.