Tennessee’s cross country squad hit the ground running in their season opener at the annual Tennessee Cross Country Invitational on Friday morning.
The Vols scored individual and team wins in both the men’s four-mile and the women’s three-mile over SEC pre-season favorite Alabama, conference rival Kentucky, and Chattanooga.
Two newcomers to Knoxville scored individual wins. Texas Tech transfer Zouhair Redouane came home first for the men, and true freshman Mary Ogwoka delivered her first career win in her first-ever outing.
Redouane gapped the field early and cruised to victory in the men’s four-mile, finishing the event in 19:18.27. His time was 15 seconds better than his teammate and fellow transfer Ethan Edgewood, who finished second for the Vols.
“I mean, as a team, we had a great day,” Edgewood said. “I think that we’re still underdogs, but we know in the back of our mind, we have so much confidence from this meet.”
As a team, the Vols took home three of the top four spots. The average team time was 19:46.34, a whole 26 seconds better than second-place Alabama.
The women’s race was much closer, with Ogwoka keeping pace with Janet Amimo and Ally Kruger of Kentucky for much of the race. In the closing stage of the race, the young freshman pulled away from her counterparts in the lead pack to come home in first.
The longest tenured Lady Vol, senior Andie-Marie Jones, led a chasing pack of three teammates home to secure fourth, fifth and sixth overall. Like the men’s event, the women scored six of the top 11 spots in their three-mile race, good enough to score the overall win over second-place Kentucky.
“We’ve got a good training block coming up,” Jones said. “Then we will really start to use those other meets later down the line to create some strides and momentum leading into SECs.”
There was much turnover this offseason for second-year head coach Justin Duncan, with over half the roster composed of transfers or freshmen.
Despite the roster turnover, he touted the gains made on the men’s side. On the women’s side, he demonstrated confidence in the team’s ability to carry over the success they had coming off a second-place showing in last year’s SEC championships. The Tulsa graduate signaled optimism in both aspects of his squad as he hopes to reload for the road ahead. Any concern for the lack of a true veteran core is not prevalent.
“You got a lot of freshmen and sophomores,” Duncan said. “But I think there’s a lot of talent there. I think we’re probably a pretty similar team when you remove the ones and then add the ones that we got.”
In any case, any time he spoke of his roster, he kept coming back to the same fundamental belief.
“We’ve got a lot of talent,” Duncan said.
The Vols will look to maintain their momentum into the Gans Creek Classic in Columbia, Missouri, on Sept. 26 for their first SEC meet of the season.
