LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The Radford men's and women's cross country teams returned to action on Saturday, running in their penultimate meet of the regular season. The Highlanders competed in the Live in Lou Classic at Louisville University as the men's team finished 30^th in the team standings and the women grabbed 22^nd place.

The event was held at E.P. "Tom" Sawyer State Park. The men opened the morning with an 8,000-meter run before the women competed in a 5,000-meter event.

MEN'S RESULTS
Radford duplicated last year's performance in the team standings. The trio of Ethan Gear, Luke Richards and Alejo Cobos all etched their names into the Radford record books with top-ten performances in program history.

Gear paced the Highlanders with a time of 25:21.0 to post Radford's fourth fastest race of all time.

Richards and Cobos were just seven seconds apart, posting times of 25:25.3 and 25:32.8 to round out Radford's top three finishes.

Clay Kelly finished with a time of 25:36.7 while Sam Sikora's 25:38.2 performance helped round out the scoring for the Highlanders.

A phenomenal day seemed to be just what cross country head coach Sam Bradley was looking for as the regular season starts to wind down. "The men were outstanding today. They threw themselves in against some incredible competition and every single person came away with a tangible positive outcome. However, it is the intangibles of this team which are most telling and impress on a far greater level. Their cohesion to work for each other in search for team success has never been so evident, and today was a small representation of that," Bradley said.

Radford showed their depth as the five scoring Highlanders all finished within 17 seconds of each other.

WOMEN'S RESULTS
The women's program also had a historic morning as three different Highlanders posted personal bests to shake up the program's record book.

Chloe Wellings' time of 17:45.8 was a new personal record that moved the junior from ninth to sixth in the archives.

A pair of personal bests from Lucy Thornton and MegAnne Gilmore were set after the duo both broke the 18-minute mark. Thornton recorded a time of 17:57.8 and Gilmore was right behind her with a time of 17:58.3, shaving 15 seconds off of her previous best time.

The final two scoring Highlanders were Abby Seigel and MacKenzie Gardner who tallied times of 18:48.1 and 18:55.6, respectively.

"The women once again showed why they are one of the conference leaders, and a regionally ranked squad. The internal cohesion combined with their selfless desire to continually push the program forward resulted in another very strong day for the ladies. With so many new faces, it is a tough task to compete on the level of a meet like Louisville, however this group continues to be competitive every time of asking. Not dissimilar to the men though, it is the bonds and links within the team that make this process and meets like this such a success," Bradley added.

UP NEXT
Radford will have next weekend off before wrapping up the regular season on Oct. 14 at the Roanoke Invite.

FOLLOW RADFORD CROSS COUNTRY
For more updates on the Radford Cross Country program, check out RadfordAthletics.com, follow @RadfordTrackXC on Twitter as well as @radfordtrackxc on Instagram and Radford Track and Field and Cross Country on Facebook.