Karisa Nelson came to the Southern Conference cross country meet Saturday morning at Camp Jordan Park thinking she could win, but the Samford University runner had extra motivation just before the women’s 5-kilometer race began.
In another day of dominance for Furman University, with both team titles for the fourth year in a row, the Paladins’ Frank Lara and Josh Brickell both passed Samford’s Arsene Guillorel late in the men’s 8k and prevented him from repeating as the individual champion.
Guillorel is Nelson’s boyfriend.
“That really motivated me. I was hyped,” she admitted after holding off Furman’s Savannah Carnahan by two seconds with a finish of 16 minutes, 22.62 seconds.
Nelson and Carnahan were side by side as they completed the first of two loops on the course.
“I took off as soon as I could see the finish line,” said Nelson, a junior from Brewton, Ala., who recalled finishing seventh in 18:30 in last year’s SoCon meet on the Furman course.
“That’s a nice drop (in time). Coming in, I thought I should win but I didn’t know if I would win. I knew I had the physical ability to win, but sometimes you have an off day mentally.”
Emma’s Emma Grace Hurley nipped Samford’s Emma Garner for third place, and the Paladins had seven of the top 10 finishers in the women’s race and six of the top 10 in the men’s. UNC Greensboro runners were seventh and 11th in the women’s race, and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga’s Maddison Melchionna and Kennedy Thomson were 16th and 19th with Anna Kate Chance 23rd and Jessica York 26th.
The first four team finishers were the same in both races: Furman first, then Samford, East Tennessee State and UTC. In the 5k the difference between ETSU and the Mocs was a mere two points.
UTC junior transfer Brennan Huber (from Tennessee Tech) was 11th with fifth-year senior Paul Stuart 13th in the 8k and made the all-conference second team. That was the second year in a row for Stuart, who is scheduled to finish his master’s degree in accounting in the spring and may run some track races as an individual, since UTC no longer has men’s track.
“I’m fine with my performance. I wish the team could’ve finished higher,” Stuart said. “I gave it my all, and I’m proud of the guys. It’s been great having Brennan on the team.”
The Mocs’ Gavin Hasty, Nathan Watson, Richard Guiry and John Payne were 29th, 31st, 32nd and 34th.
Stuart acknowledged that having an in-season coaching change was a tough adjustment even though he likes new coach Andy Meyer, a former Moc hired seven weeks ago from Dalton State College.
“I thought the kids performed very well today,” Meyer said, noting that all of the UTC men and all but a couple of the women had either personal records or season bests on the relatively flat course. “We basically were all running for second, and we just have to tip our hats to ETSU and Samford for great runs.”
The day’s greatest run was by Lara, whose 8k time was 23:16.44 Brickell followed in 23:25.34 with Guillorel in 23:36.69 as the only other sub-24 finisher. Lara said he stayed with the Samford standout but intentionally ran behind him until a little less than a mile remained.
“We knew Arsene was going to be the man to beat,” said the junior from Houston. “Josh came right behind me, and Ryan (Adams, who finished fourth) ran a pretty good race, too.
“We were 13th in the country last year, and we’re hoping to continue in national contention for the next couple of years.”
While Furman’s Robert Gary was the men’s and women’s coach of the year, Lara was the male runner of the year and Adams and Carnahan were the freshmen of the year, Brickell and Julia Rodriguez were the inaugural Pinnacle Award winners for the highest grade point averages on the winning teams.