Jackson Leads Cross Country To Victory

Saturday, September 8

New Market, Va.

10:45 a.m.

James Madison University

JMU Invitational

9/8/2018 1:49:00 PM | Cross Country

Gallery Women's Results Men's Results

NEW MARKET, Va. – Through the foggy morning, senior Erica Jackson led the way as James Madison cross country finished first at the JMU Invitational. Jackson took first place, the first Duke to win a race in the early season and first since Nora Raher '18 won the CAA Championship on October 28, 2017.

JMU tallied a meet-low 21 points by taking five of the top seven spots. St. Francis (PA) finished second with 36 points and VMI a distant third with 84 points.

RACE RECAP

Jackson led the way with her first-place finish keeping herself in the top three the whole race with a personal record of 19:43.00 in the 5.2K
Erin Saunders finished in third place just six seconds after Jackson and a mere four seconds behind the second-place finisher
Freshman Jodi Tolarchyk rounded out the top-five for the Dukes with a fourth-place finish in her first 5.2K
Kayla Connelly (6^th) and Averi Witt (7^th) kept JMUs points low finishing in the top-10. Both set personal records in the race.
Madelynn Knight and Lanie Jo Knight wrapped up JMUs points with their respective finishes at 13^th and 17^th.

JMU Runners – Out of 74 runners, Eight teams

Place	Runner	Time
1	Erica Jackson	19:43.00
3	Erin Saunders	19:49.00
4	Jodi Tolarchyk	19:54.00
6	Kayla Connelly	20:05.00
7	Averi Witt	20:16.00
13	Madelynn Knight	20:53.00
17	Lanie Jo Knight	21:15.00
21	Katie Fox	21:35.00
22	Grace Edison	21:42.00

WHAT THEY'RE SAYING:
Coach Rinker: "The objective was to work together as a team and let Saint Francis control the race through two miles then we were supposed to push the last mile and they really did. Erica looked in control even though she wasn't leading and her, Jodi or Erin always kept each other in sight. They did a really nice job, all the groups did. Averi moved up, Kayla I thought did a good job moving up in the last mile. Not everyone had a great day today, but not everybody is going to have a great day every day anyway. I thought they stuck to the plan and raced together. We are very tired right now, we are working really hard. It was a great day for us."

UP NEXT:
JMU takes two weeks off from competing and heads to Bethlehem, Pa. for the Paul Short Invitational on Saturday, Sep. 29 at 10 a.m.