Tennessee cross country finished the 2024 season with a sixth-place SEC finish from the men’s side and a 26th-place NCAA finish on the women’s side.
Heading into a new season, second-year head coach Justin Duncan is faced with roster turnover that features eight freshmen and five transfers. With the changes, Friday served as the first opportunity to get a look at competition when the Vols and Lady Vols hosted the Tennessee Cross Country Invitational.
Tennessee welcomed Alabama, Chattanooga and Kentucky to kick off the season. After a four-mile men’s race and a three-mile women’s race, Tennessee walked away as the team winners and individual winners of both.
“I think we’re in a really good position,” Duncan told The Daily Beacon. “It’s really exciting. It’s good to be back and have the cross country season officially underway.”
Leading the way were a pair of new faces to the roster. California Baptist transfer, by way of Texas Tech, Zouhair Redouane paced the men’s group with a 19:18.27 minute time — a 15-second pace over second-place teammate Ethan Edgeworth.
For the Lady Vols, it was freshman Mary Ogwoka who pulled away from the pack to steal the women’s win. While neck-and-neck with Kentucky through the first two miles, coming down the home stretch was Ogwoka, who took a seven-second win with a time of 16:32.39.
“I think it sets the tone for everyone else,” Duncan said. ”It sets the tone for kind of where we’re at and what the future hopefully has in store.”
It was a similar result to last season’s invitational, where the Vols and Lady Vols swept the field. The difference, however, was the rise in competition. The Tennessee Invitational is usually an invitation to local schools to make their way to the course, but with the SEC Championships being held in October in Knoxville, a pair of SEC foes joined in.
Still, it was Tennessee sweeping the field.
“I think we’re definitely in a really good spot in terms of the depth and the talent right now,” Duncan said.
Starting the season with a pair of title wins allows expectations to rise. After taking over for the departed Sean Carlson last year, Duncan takes on a hefty role in year two with the influx of new faces.
That experience has built him confidence in the heights he can take the program to as the season progresses.
“We want to be another program that is contending for wins at the SEC level and the national level,” Duncan said. “So I think, yeah, being here, being in that environment for a year now, I think it’s making us better. I think you become the environment you place yourself in.”
Andie-Marie Jones is the lone four-year athlete to make it through the program. She kicked off her senior season with a fourth-place finish in 17:07.99 to make four of the top-six finishers Lady Vols.
Her experience within the program is something she is feeding to the rest of the squad.
“It feels a little bit weird because I feel like — in my brain — I’m not really a senior, but I know that I am because I’ve been here for so long,” Jones said. “I do feel like a little bit of a responsibility of like, kind of passing on the culture of Tennessee Volunteers cross country. But, I mean, it’s just really exciting to kind of bring up a new generation of cross country runners for Tennessee.”
Jones is confident in what the team brings to the table this season. That trickles over to the men’s side as well for Edgeworth, who transferred from Colorado. An original Tennessee commit out of high school, Edgeworth eventually decided on landing at Colorado for his freshman season, but he felt a homecoming in store for his second year.
During his first meet with Tennessee, Edgeworth finished second in the running to Redouane.
“We have such a long way to go,” Edgeworth said. “We’re already this good, and we’re so young. Our oldest guy in the top five is a junior this year. I think he has a sophomore eligibility.
“That just gives us so much more confidence coming in here in the next few years, we’re going to be just absolutely great.”
Tennessee cross country will not have to wait a few years to be hoisted in the spotlight, though.
Cherokee Farm Cross Country Course will be home to the 2025 SEC Championship, the school’s first time hosting the event since 2011, when it took place at the Lambert Acres Golf Club in Maryville.
“We kind of do everything right here, and so we call ourselves in everything school, which we are,” Duncan said. “So being able to hold the SEC meet and perform well at it, obviously, that’s kind of, you know, a big thing to us. It’s very exciting.
“But also just to showcase like Knoxville, again, it’s beautiful here. being able to get all down to the cross-country course. I think it’s really important. Obviously, there’s a big running community here. It brings a lot of positivity to the group — to the program, the school.”
The Vols and Lady Vols will return to the running in Columbia, Missouri, for the Gans Creek Classic on Sept. 26.
