By: Colin Gowin
The Blackburn College cross country teams went to Edwardsville, Ill. to race in the SIUE challenge on Friday, September 12. The day featured a 6k women's race and an 8k men's race. Blackburn saw freshman Wendy Pocklington run in the women's race and the men's race included freshmen: Tim Lacy, Zach Felkel, David Serrano, and Noah Daum, sophomore Mitch Elliot, and juniors Nathan Speckhart and Colin Gowin.
The big race of the day was the men's race, as the women's team doesn't have enough runners to field a whole team. The team faced some strong competition including: division-one Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville, Missouri Valley College, and division-two McKendree University. Blackburn was led by freshman Tim Lacy who ran a time of 30:42 and placed 23 overall. As a team, Blackburn's men's team has shown great improvements from last year's season. The team's top five's average time was 31:42, a large improvement from last season's 34:25 at this meet.
Both the men's and the women's team will be back in action on October 3 at Milikin University starting at 4:30 pm.