Saturday afternoon the Florida State College at Jacksonville men and women's cross country teams competed in the NJCAA DII National Cross Country Championships at John Hunt Park in Huntsville Alabama. A record 118 colleges competed in the DII races and FSCJ finished 19th in the nation among them.
In the men's race, former Atlantic Coast High School freshman, Ashton Curl charged past four runners in the last kilometer to record a personal record (PR) of 27:56 over the rolling 8,000m course. Sophomore, team captain Jaxon McKim's final kilometer attack propelled him past 9 runners to finish three seconds behind in a new PR of 27:59. Ashton's time moves him to #3 on the FSCJ Top Ten All-Time cross country list and Jaxon now resides in the #4 spot. Also establishing new PR's were Logan Moore (28:40) and Wyatt Dugan (29:52). Luke Williams had a season's best time of 29:18. Freshmen Christin Mayfield and Bryce Nobles rounded out the top seven.
One hour later the fast closing Kayleigh McWatters passed eight runners in the final kilometer to clock a PR performance of 20:31, moving to #2 on the FSCJ Top Ten All-Time list and lead the previously unranked FSCJ BlueWave women to a solid 24th place team finish. Lynn Winkler and Ashtyn Parsons also ran new PR's. Zahir Miller, Tytiyonna Nesmith and Hailly Guillen-Polanco turned in solid performances to secure a place in the Top 25 nationally.
"The men had an average time of 28:45 and a pack time of 1:57. Those are very solid stats," commented head coach Jody Hale. "We are especially excited about the changes in our program Top 10, Kayleigh moving to #2 and Aston, Jaxon, and Logan moving to #3, #4, and #10. We had seven PR's today, these athletes picked the right day to have a great day. And we have a really solid group of freshmen returning next year."
For complete nationals meet results: https://live.xpresstiming.com/meets/28789
For NJCAA National Rankings: https://www.ustfccca.org/team-rankings-polls-central/njcaa-team-rankings