The Florida men’s and women’s cross country teams will travel to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to compete in the SEC Championships at the LSU Cross Country Course Friday morning. This is the fourth time that LSU will host the championship meet.
This season saw a consistent decline for both teams in all three meets they raced in. The men have finished 3rd, 4th and 6th in their three meets, respectively, and the women have recorded a DNP, 7th place and 9th place finishes in those same meets. The results have come against stronger competition in each subsequent meet and Friday will likely be both teams’ toughest yet.
The men will compete against nine universities: Arkansas, Ole Miss, Missouri, Tennessee, Alabama, Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Georgia, Texas A&M, Auburn and LSU. Meanwhile, the women’s team will face 11, as South Carolina and Mississippi State exclusively race women’s teams.
The two teams which will most likely be edging one another out for the title in both races are Arkansas and Ole Miss. The Rebels look for their third straight championship after stealing the 2018 title from the Razorbacks, who won the title eight years in a row. While Arkansas’ men’s side looks to recapture the crown, the women look to continue their dominance of the field. The Razorbacks won the past seven SEC championships. The last school that won was Florida in 2012.
UF enters Friday a different team to that which competed in the championship in Lexington, Kentucky, last year, where the men finished 6th and the women 11th. Although the men have seven runners returning from last year, they will be without their top two finishers in Jack Guyton and Colin Schaefer. The women are in a similar position. They will be without their top two finishers from last year, seniors Jessica Pascoe and Elisabeth Bergh.
Both races will be broadcasted on the SEC Network, with the Women’s Race beginning at 10:05 a.m. ET and the Men’s Race following soon after, scheduled for 11 a.m. ET.
Contact Myles Herbert at mherbert@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @myles_herbert.
