Salem, VA -Freshman Kevin Macias gutted through a sore ankle to lead the Bluefield State men's cross country team to a fifth-place finish Friday at the Roanoke College Invitational. Macias earned a tenth-place individual finish, crossing the line in 17:49.3 to pace the B-State men. Freshman Austin Sigman (18:35) joined Macias in the top 20.
"Our two front runners continue to look solid," said B-State Head Cross Country Coach Brooks Rexroat. "Kevin is a little under the weather, and was cleared fairly late before the race. We gave him the option of resting through this one, but he's a fierce competitor. We'll get some recovery and rest in for him and hopefully he'll be back to full strength and ready to open things up before we race
again. Austin ran strong as well, and I liked the way the rest of our pack worked together and moved up the field. This is a young group and fairly inexperienced in the sport, but the talent is there—we just need a little time and some continued strong workouts to help everything gel, but I trust this group to take care of that and keep moving upward."
Christon Hardemon (23rd), Tyler Davis (24th) and Javan McBride (26th), crossed the line as a close-knit pack to complete the scoring five for Bluefield State. Jalen Jones (31st) and Ben Walker (35th) also contested the race for the Big Blue.
Host Roanoke won the meet with 30 points, followed by UVA-Wise
Third-place Shaw, which did not field a full squad last week at Elon, was boosted by some early-season roster additions to earn a third-place finish. Averett, behind the strength of overall race winner Anthony Ponce-Mexicano, edged out the B-State men to take fourth, while Mary Baldwin finished sixth and WVU Tech fielded a partial squad.
There were some opportunities to move up a spot or two, with a couple packs of runners available to be passed in the final race stretch, but they were just a bit out of reach today. We're still working on energy distribution and surge timing a little, but we learned a lot from the race today, and I think this is one we'll look back at later and know that it made us better. I'm proud of what we did today, but the meet also points to some better things to come.
B-State's runners will return to competition Sept. 23 at Virginia State University.
The next couple of weeks will be critical for us as we weave together some recovery work with some intensified training. We start moving to the championship race distance (8-kilometers) when we race next, so that's a big shift and we've got time to prepare for it. We're looking forward to a great showing at VSU.
