Men’s cross country team running well before conference race

Missouri Southern Men’s cross country team conquered Saturday at the Jackling Jocks Invite hosted by Missouri S&T, taking home the team title.

The 10th-ranked Lions completed the race with four runners in the top 10 and earned a score of 26 points in general.

Sophomores Adrian Todd, from Kickapoo, Mo., and Eric Schott, from Cape Girardeau, Mo., led the race placing 2 and 3, Schott trailing Todd’s 25:01.59 time by just .12 seconds.

Andrew Webster, a sophomore from St. Peters, Mo., was just seven seconds behind them and earned fourth place overall.

Junior Jake Benton, from Wentzville, Mo., earned a time of 25:22.60, placing seventh.

Colton Wooldridge, a sophomore from Farmington, Mo., placed 10 with a time of 25:33.73.

“We got out well as a team, controlled the pace of the race, and we worked really well on our pack time,” Wooldridge said.

“Our pack time for our number one to our number five guy was 32 seconds and that’s awesome to do for a cross country team. We won as a team. It was a very good tune-up meet for the conference race that will be coming up next weekend.”

Freshmen Ryan Jackson, from Herculaneum, Mo., and Nathan Henry, from DeSoto, Mo., placed 19 and 26, respectively.

“It was just a good team win, a good team race,” and that’s what we’ve got to do,” Head Coach Tom Rutledge said.

“If we do that at conference, we’ll be hard to beat. We’ve got to stay focused because it’s going to be tough to win, but we can do it.”

The Lions will take a week off and will continue their season on October 20 at the MIAA Championships hosted by Northwest Missouri State in Maryville.