Alabama’s cross country hosted the annual Crimson Classic on Oct. 16 in Tuscaloosa, and the Alabama women’s team ran to a second place finish in the team rankings, finishing with 71 points while the men’s team finished sixth with 182 overall team points.
For the women, three runners finished in the top 15. Senior Katelyn Greenleaf came in third at a time of 16:47.41. Junior Hannah Waggoner and senior Meropi Panagiotou also finished in the top 15. Waggoner finished 13th with a time of 17:22.70 and Panagiotou finished 15th with a time of 17:31.87.
“We just really wanted to show everyone what we are made of,” said Greenleaf. “I know we are capable of more than we showed today, we are going to be able improve a lot from this.”
Alabama had seven runners finish in the top 50. Redshirt freshman Rachael Reddy had to pull out of the race due to an injury. Reddy had been one of Alabama’s strongest runners thus far, with multiple first place finishes.
Oklahoma State took top honors in the women’s competition, with three of its runners finishing in the top five.
“We still have to improve a lot more,” said Panagiotou. “We still have a lot in us that we did not show today.”
The Alabama men’s team saw junior Antibahs Kosgei finish second in the race, crossing the finish line in 24:17.47. Junior Conner Thompson was Alabama’s next runner to cross the finish line, finishing 19th with a time of 25:04.75. Alabama had one other runner finish in the top 50 as junior Robbie Farham-Rose finished 47th with a time of 25:45.01.
“We fought really hard,” said Thompson. “We definitely went out there and gave it our all, but we still have a lot of room to grow.”
Oklahoma State’s men followed suit with the women’s team, finishing first with an overall score of 27. Texas A&M (95), Lipscomb (131), Auburn (146) and North Florida (170) rounded out the top five.
Both Alabama teams will head to SEC Championships on Oct. 30th in College Station, Texas with NCAA regionals right around the corner.
