Over this past weekend the ETSU Cross Country team headed up to Furman for the annual Furman Invitational.
The Bucs were competing without their best runners this year. Earlier this year two of the Bucs lead runners suffered injuries. Freshman standout Jeffery Crane fell off a ladder before arriving at ETSU this semester, while Joshua Hicks pulled his groin and knee earlier this semester.
The competitions took place at the Furman University Golf Course in Greenville. The men were running an 8K loop, while the women’s teams ran the 5K course.
Even with the disabled team, the Bucs still were able to finish 14th overall. Junior Peter Dalton led the team finishing sixth individually. Dalton finished with a time of 25:54.40. Jacob Korir of Eastern Kentucky ran the fast individual time. Korir’s time of 25:07.52 was just 47 seconds faster than Dalton’s finish.
Freshman Jordan Ladd came in second for the Bucs finishing the course in 26:59.50, just over 1:51 behind the leader. After the meet, ETSU coach Dave Walker said, “If Peter (Dalton) continues to run like he is now, he will contend for a top-five finish at the conference meet.”
In the team finishes, Eastern Kentucky grabbed the title just ahead of second place Appalachian State.
Host school Furman was able to finish in third.
Other Southern Conference finishes include Western Carolina and Davidson took seventh and eighth while Elon finished at 11th ahead of ETSU’s 14th place finish.
The Lady Bucs were able to have four girls run in the meet. Leading the Lady Bucs was Jennifer Habbestad finishing in 36th.
Habbestad finished the 5k meet with a time of 19:46.54 nearly 1:45 behind leader Allison Kreutzer from Clayton State. Allison’s winning finish was 18:01.99.
Katie Sujkowski from Appalachian State had the second place finish of 18:02.56.
“We are definitely moving in the right direction. We are pleased with how we progressed and how we executed our race plan.” ETSU assistant coach Michelle Byrne said.
For the Lady Bucs, the top three rounds out with Freshman MacKenzie LaBonte at 78, finishing in 20:35.73 and Sophomore Maggie Hunter coming in at 96th with a time of 20:53.84.
The top three team finishers were Appalachian State and Davison tied for first and Furman was third.
Other SoCon School finishers included College of Charleston in seventh and Western Carolina in 11th.
“All four of our runners showed marked improvement over their performances in our last meet at Virginia” Byrne said in reference to the Sept. 18 meet at Virginia in the Lou Onesty Invitational were the Lady Bucs finished in seventh.
This weekend was a big preview of the Southern Conference Cross Country Championships set to take place later this month at the same course.
This weekend the Bucs and Lady Bucs will head up to Boone, N.C., to compete in the Blue Ridge Open.
Appalachian State will be host to the Blue Ridge Open.

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