RUSTON — The Louisiana Tech cross country teams started the season with freshmen leading the way at the Rice Invitational at the Rice Intramural Fields on Friday evening. The women's team finished sixth, while the men ended the race in eighth.

In their first collegiate race, Delaney Lopez and William Byrd led the Bulldogs in the women's 4k and the men's 5200. Lopez crossed the finish line in 18th with a time of 15:38.00 for the women, and Byrd had a time of 18:06.80 for the men.

Rebecca Quebedeaux finished not far behind Lopez and set a new personal best of 15:53.00 to finish 21st. Lexa Thompson (16:43.20), Gracie Pepitone (17:21.20), and Brooke Fontenot (17:34.60) rounded out the scoring for the women.

The men had all their scorers finish under the 19-minute mark. Arie Linton crossed one place behind Byrd with a time of 18:11.30. Kenneth Smith (18:24.20), Dillon Moree (18:42.50), and Dillon Sanchez (18:48.40) were the other times counting for the Bulldogs.

QUOTABLES
Distance Coach Halle McClintock

"I'm very excited about the way our teams competed today. Being very early in the season, I'm happy with how the athletes positioned themselves in the race and fought through the field. We still have work to do, but many of the athletes spent a large part of the competition running close to or faster than their PR pace. We learned a lot from the first competition, and I'm looking forward to using that in the next few weeks of training!"

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