Gator women captured their fifth consecutive Mountain Dew title behind an historical performance from junior Jessica Pascoe.
Florida women take Mountain Dew Invitational Crown for Fifth Straight Year
Saturday, September 22, 2018 | Cross Country
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By: Corinne Simpson
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The Florida Gators women's cross country team collected their fifth straight Mountain Dew Invitational Title. Florida's men, despite having its top five runners finish in the top-25, settled for a third place finish. Jessica Pacoe chomps as she wins the Mountain Dew Invitational on Saturday.
The Gators hosted their only home meet of the season at the Mark Bostick Golf Course on Saturday and posted nine top-25 finishes with 14 personal records for the men and women.
On the women's side, junior Jessica Pascoe made history with her first-place finish as she became only the third Gator in school history to post three top-5 finishes at the Mountain Dew Invitational. Her time of 16:13.87 was a 58 second personal best.
Redshirt junior Elisabeth Bergh and senior Caitlin McQuilkin-Bell ran together most of the race, pushing each other to personal bests as they finished third and fourth for the Gators. Freshman Grace Blair got her second top-20 finish of her career with a 17th place finish on Saturday and redshirt freshman Abbie Harrelson rounded out Florida's top-5 crossing the finish line at 57.
For the men, redshirt sophomore Colin Schaefer led the way for the Gators. He finished fourth with a personal best time of 24:29.96. He was the only Florida men's runner in the top-10. Redshirt junior Jack Guyton finished 11th and redshirt freshman Nick Deal, redshirt junior Magnus Pettersen and redshirt sophomore Jesse Millson logged 16-17-23 finish for the complete the men's top-5.
Thoughts on the Race from Assistant Coach Chris Solinsky:
"I thought it was the necessary step that we needed for this year. I think our women came in and we were ready to take control of the race, but be patient and that was the message. Let's be patient the first lap, make sure we are establishing position and just going through the motions like we do in practice."
"Guys side, we are working really hard and the men did a good job of responding to two pretty darn good teams and I think where we are in training and we can put ourselves in a position to be competitive with those teams when it matters at the regional meet."
"Where we are today is a starting point for where we are going to be toward the end of the year. Finishing first and third, a little bit short of what we wanted to do as a full team in both men and women but I thought the women fought really well and I thought the men fought really well and that's what I want to see right now. You want to pull out the wins right now, but at the same time you want to see whatever is thrown their way, they can compete and they can fight and claw their way back to the positions we need to be by the end of the race and if we do that in early season then when we taper and peak, we are going to be ready to do it in a bigger way at the end of the season."
Florida will compete again in two weeks, when it splits the team for weekend races at the Florida State Invitational and the Arturo Barrios Invitational at Texas A&M. Race days are scheduled for Friday, Oct. 12 and Saturday, Oct. 13.
