XC: Hodge Leads Bears at Arturo Barrios Invitational

Saturday, October 16

College Station, Texas

All Day

Baylor

Arturo Barrios Invitational

XC: Hodge Leads Bears at Arturo Barrios Invitational

10/16/2021 2:21:00 PM | Cross Country

Complete Results

Women’s team placed 12th while men’s team finished 15th

WACO, Texas – Ryan Hodge ran below 24 minutes in the men's 8K for the first time in his career to finish 13^th and lead Baylor cross country Saturday morning at the Arturo Barrios Invitational in College Station.

"I thought overall, we're getting closer to having our top-five within that small window that we're looking for," head cross country coach David Barnett said. "On the men's side, obviously Ryan (Hodge) had a big day and had a big personal best. Aside from the time, he was really competitive in a very tough field. Ryan Day and Drew Snyder continued to run well. Some of our younger folks are starting to move up the ladder a little bit to help put the pieces together. We still don't have our top-five as close to each other as we would like, but we're making progress."

Hodge recorded a personal-best time of 23:57.0 to lead the Baylor men's team in 13^th place, followed by Day in 49^th(personal-best 24:37.7), Snyder in 59^th (personal-best 24:45.5), Philip Roxas in 121^st (personal-best 25:34.1) and Christopher Martinez in 171^st (26:19.8).

Lily Jacobs led the way for the women's team with a personal-best time of 21:20.4 to finish in 26^th place, followed by Ellie Friesen in 36^th place (personal-best 21:30.3), Hayden Gold in 77^th (personal-best 22:06.5), Chole Gangnath in 113^th(personal-best 22:37.8) and Mazie Larsen in 122^nd (personal-best 22:49.9).

"On the women's side, Lily led the way in a very competitive field," Barnett said. "There were several national-caliber runners, and she competed at a high level. Ellie continues to race with a lot of toughness and is working hard. I feel like the freshmen are making progress as well, and I'm confident that our best races are still ahead of us. Big 12's coming up in two weeks should be a good race."

As a team, the Bears finished in 12^th place on the women's side with 350 points and placed 15^th on the men's side with 385 points.

"The big thing for me is I wanted us to run as fast as possible and just be competitive," Barnett said. "I feel like we're gaining more and more confidence with the 6,000- and 8,000-meter races, and we're starting to put it together. We had some great weather today and some great competition, and it was enjoyable to watch it play out."

Next up for the Bears will be the Big 12 Championships on Oct. 29 at the Greiner Family Cross Country Course in Stillwater, Okla. Live results will be provided by Prime Time Timing.

"Heading into Big 12's, on the men's side, we definitely have five guys that are capable of racing good races, and on the women's side we have six or seven that we're really comfortable with," Barnett said. "We'll have Celia (Holmes) back at Big 12's, and it will be good to put it all together on a competitive course."

For updates on Baylor cross country throughout the season, follow @BaylorTrack on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.