Findley and Wood Place in Top-20 at National Open

Friday, October 12

University Park, PA.

9:45 AM CT

University of Missouri

National Open

Marc Burns @ 2015 Forest Park XC Festival

10/12/2018 5:50:00 PM | Men's Cross Country, Women's Cross Country, Cross Country

National Open Results - Men National Open Results - Women Bradley Pink Classic Results - Men Bradley Pink Classic Results - Women

Findley leads Mizzou women to Ninth-Place finish, Men finish 15th overall

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – The Mizzou Cross Country team continued its season on Friday as it competed in two separate meets. At the National Open in State College, Pa., the women's team took ninth while the men's team placed 15th in the highly competitive invitational. Freshman Tori Findley (Blue Springs, Mo.) finished first for the Mizzou women while placing 16th overall, and was also the fifth highest placing freshman for the women. Junior Kieran Wood (Cambridge, U.K.) paced Mizzou on the men's side for the second straight meet while placing 20th overall.

Mizzou also had 15 runners in competition at the Bradley Pink Classic in Peoria, Ill., as redshirt senior Zach Cook (Columbia, Mo.) paced the men while redshirt junior Samantha Farmer (Columbia, Mo.) paced the women.

NOTABLE TIGERS

Findley led the Tigers in the 6k race with a time of 21:01, finishing first on the team for the second meet in a row. Freshman Mikayla Reed (Washington, Mo.) finished second for the Tigers and 42nd overall with a time of 21:22.

For the men, Wood finished first for the team for the second consecutive time this year with a time of 25:25 in the 5.2-mile race. Redshirt senior Evan Schulte (Columbia, Mo.) had his best team finish of the year with a second-place effort for the Tigers with a time of 26:16, placing 84th overall.

In Illinois, Cook finished 91^st overall at 25:57.6 in the 8k race, while Farmer crossed the finish line at 23:07.2 in the 6k race.

QUOTABLES

Mizzou Head Coach Marc Burns

"Our women got out much better this week and held on to beat some very good teams. This was the first 6k for our newcomers and the last half of the race was mostly uphill. Tori Findley crushed it up front and looked great the whole way. We are growing as a team and will be ready to battle throughout the championship season."

"Kieran Wood led our men's team by getting out fast and running up in the top-20 the entire race. His strength is coming around and we are excited for his growth in cross country in his first couple of months here at Mizzou. We still have some work to do as a team to get all of the pieces to come together. Evan Schulte did a nice job today and continues to get better week to week. We still need to get our three through five runners to finish closer together and continue to close the gap on our top-two."

"Zach Cook ran a solid opener at Bradley today and will give us some more depth in two weeks. The conditions were tough at Bradley and Penn State today and our crew embraced it and raced with a sense of purpose."