The men had an equally matching team performance as they perfect scored the meet (15 points) by taking the first nine places and having all but one of their twelve runners come home with All-Conference honors. Leading the Captains' charge once again was the inseparable freshmen duo of Cary Chaffee and Brandon Miles. After Miles won the Mason-Dixon Conference title last weekend over Chaffee, Chaffee evened up the tally score of conference titles with Miles by winning the USA South men's 8K race in a time of 26:22. Miles was not too far behind in second place at 26:26. Showing lots of promise of returning to his national cross country championship qualifying form from a year ago, junior Jim Highsmith finished third with a season best time of 26:45. Rounding out the remaining top seven for CNU as well as USA South All-Conference first team members were junior Nate Wallace (4th, 27:27), senior Sean Smith (5th, 27:35), junior David Baer (6th, 27:36), and junior Jason Berry (27:40). Freshmen Tim Scott (8th, 27:47), freshmen David Barham (9th, 27:55), junior Jon House (11th, 28:11), and sophomore Art Vandenesse (13th, 28:51) also earned All-Conference honors as second team members.
PLEASANT GARDENS, NC -- CNU senior Aimee Gibbs made history by becoming the first female runner ever to win four consecutive USA South (formerly Dixie) Conference titles. Gibbs did it in impressive fashion as she covered the approximately 5.7 kilometer course at Hagan Stone Park in a time of 21:04. Her time is equivalent to a 22:14 6K, which would be a personal best time for Gibbs over the 6000 meter distance. Meanwhile, the remainder of the CNU women's squad took care of business with six other runners earning all-conference honors for total score of 16 points. Sophomore Emily Low ran a sensational race to take runner-up honors to Gibbs in a time of 21:57 (23:10 6K equivalent). The next two finishers in the race were both from CNU as sophomore Megan Fogarty (3rd, 22:16) and freshmen Ashley Ezell (4th, 22:26) ran times that would be equivalent to running a 23:30 and 23:41 respectively for the 6K distance. Ferrum's Lalita Brim (22:55) broke up a top five perfect sweep for the women's team, but senior Alicia Burns rounded out the CNU women's five scoring runners with a sixth place finishing time of 23:20 (24:38 6K equivalent). Sophomore Elizabeth Browning (8th, 24:27) and senior Crystal Lassiter Crystal Lassiter (9th, 24:39) also came away with All-Conference honors with top ten finishes.