Cross Country Hosts their First Home Meet

History was made Friday, Sept. 13, 2019, as the Milligan College cross country team hosted their first-ever home meet since its reinstatement. This dual meet with Tennessee Wesleyan University consisted of the women racing 3,200 meters and the men racing three miles on the “M” Loop and parts of the soccer field. 

“We needed a race,” Coach Chris Layne, head coach of the cross country and track and field teams, explained about doing the meet this year. “Tennessee Wesleyan and I talked about doing a dual meet format. It was going to be down there, but that fell through and I said, ‘Hey, let’s put a course together and come up here,’” Layne said. 

The original plan was for Milligan to race Tennessee Wesleyan at Cherokee Park in Knoxville, TN. However, because of construction on the course, the site of the meet had to change. 

Despite this minor setback, the meet still happened in a unique way. “We were limited to space. I knew if we could get the soccer coaches to agree to allow us to use the perimeter of their fields that this thing might just be enough to do two short courses,” Layne said. The women ran a 3,200-meter course compared to five kilometers for championships, and the men ran three miles compared to an eight kilometers course. 

The shorter course didn’t stop the buffs from running fast and having fun. 

With an average time of 11 minutes and 24 seconds for the 3200-meter race, the Lady Buffs won the meet by 27 points over Tennessee Wesleyan University. Sophomore Gabrielle Mardis lead the way with her winning time of 11 minutes and 9.7 seconds. The Lady Buffs had seven top 10 performers. 

The men also had an interesting race as well with juniors Nathan Baker and Tim Thacker battling it out for most of the race. Baker pulled out in front to win with a time of 14 minutes and 55.9 seconds. 

The men’s entire team finished just under five minutes faster than the men of Tennessee Wesleyan. It allowed the Buffs to come on top in the score total by 35 points, and Milligan won with a final score of 15-50.

Was this event a success? “No doubt,” Layne says, “The end result is that this is something that we should look at doing on a regular basis.”

Official stats and times can be found on the TFRRS website.

The Milligan men and women will race Montreat University at another home meet in October, but this one is scheduled to be on the Tweetsie Trail.

Headline photo: Milligan and Tennessee Wesleyan’s men line up at the starting line.