AUBURN—The Alabama State University cross country teams faced some early season stiff competition and came away with some solid performances on both the men's and women's teams at the Auburn Invitational.
 
The Lady Hornets finished 8^th (197 points) out of the 11 teams participating and were led by freshman Paige Rankin who finished 18^th in the 4k event with a time of 15:18.2.
 
Artrailia LeSane was the next Lady Hornet to cross the finish line in 16:09.3, finishing 34th.  Kim Wedderburn (16:43.0) and Shantina Wilson (16:43.6) finished 45^th and 46^th while the final point scorer Jerrica Mahone (17:14.5) finished 54^th.
 
Other Lady Hornet runners were Santina Williams (17:49.3) finishing 61^st and Soyong Smith (19:46.6) finishing 70^th.
 
The men also finished eighth with 209 points in their first 6k race of the year.  First-year runner Brandon Coombs paced the Hornets crossing the finish line in 22:31.1, placing him 36^th.
 
James Walker (22:36.7) was right there with him crossing the finish line 38^th.  Cory Nawiji (24:02.2), Carlos Flores (24:09.0) and Carleddy St. Jean (24:24.7) finished 44^th, 45^th and 46^th.  The final runner for ASU was Jordan Agee (24:31.6) who finished 48^th.
 
“We got what I thought we would get out of them this week,” Head Coach Ritchie Beene said.  “We moved up in distance and we faced some of the top competition around and I thought they responded well.  We were hoping they would run a little faster, but the times in this meet this year were a lot faster than the times in the same race last year.”
 
“We did have some good performances, especially on the women's side.  Our top two female finishers, both freshmen, actually ran faster than our seniors in last year's race.”
 
“On the men's side, it was good to go up there with a full team.  This time last year we only had three runners and were still in the process of getting a team together, so it is good to have a full team and they are only going to get better.”
 
ASU will be back in action on Saturday, Sept. 15 at the Azalea City Classic.  The run will be held at the Brookley Gulf Pines Golf Course in Mobile.