GAINESVILLE, Fla. - North Florida women's cross country impressed many with its performance with several runners pushing their way up the leaderboard in the 3-mile race to finish sixth as a team at the Mountain Dew Invitational hosted by Florida on Friday morning.
Ana Markovina had a remarkable debut with the Ospreys at the meet with a time of 17:53.8 to make her way into the top 20 individuals.
Erica Fisher found herself just outside the top 25 at 18:00.07, while
Emma Millson and
Billie Castillo rounded out UNF runners in the top 40.
The Ospreys finished over in-state opponents such as USF, FAU, Stetson, Florida Gulf Coast, Florida A&M, Florida Southern, FIU and Bethune-Cookman. There were also runners from UNF to finish over competitors from the likes of Florida, Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech and Chattanooga.
FINISH LINE
- This was the first race of the 40th anniversary of UNF athletics, which was started by cross country being UNF's first sporting event in 1983.
- Markovina, who is a recent transfer from St. John's, made an early impact with a 20th-place finish that led the team in the 3-mile race.
- Fisher was following Markovina after clocking in right at 18 minutes, as she pushed her way from 47th from the 1-mile checkpoint to a 26th overall finish.
- Millson and Castillo both made similar jumps in the race after being outside the top 50 at the one-mile mark to showing spots in the top 36 at the finish line.
- Isa Leen, Hannah Martin and Ella Chandler all showed stellar 3-mile times to finish among the top 55 runners.
- Laci Watford and Jada Williams join Chandler as sophomores ready to take the next step, as they both finished side-by-side in the top 70.
- Annika Buser and Mary Pace-Balzan rounded out the Osprey squad each making their debuts on the team with times just over 19 minutes.
PIGG'S POINTS
"On the women's side, we had a solid day. EJ [O'Gorman], who is probably our top runner, had her plantar fascia act up a little bit, so we decided not to run her. I thought the rest of the girls stepped up.
Obviously, that left a little bit of a void at the front. Newcomer, Ana [Markovina], I thought she did a great job. She was our top runner at 20th overall.
Erica [Fisher] was pretty close to her and that's kind of what we would expect Erica to be able to do, so that was a pretty good one-two punch. Billie [Castillo] has been working hard as well. This is the fittest she's ever been and this year is her last year and she really wants to go out and do well. Her and Hannah [Martin] really did a nice job.
I think for the first meet of the year, specifically for the women, that you can kind of tell I think they're not sure kind of where they need to be and we haven't done much of that stuff. So, it was it was good opener, but we know there's a lot more that we can go get. Solid start and really look forward to a couple of weeks of training, getting back out there in Missouri and being able to continue to elevate the performance of the women's team throughout the season."
-- head coach
Jeff Pigg
UNF RESULTS
20.
Ana Markovina - 17:53.8
26.
Erica Fisher - 18:00.7
32.
Emma Millson - 18:07.1
37.
Billie Castillo - 18:10.6
42.
Isa Leen - 18:17.3
49.
Hannah Martin - 18:31.5
54.
Ella Chandler - 18:37.2
67.
Laci Watford - 18:54.5
68.
Jada Williams - 18:56.3
72.
Annika Buser - 19:11.2
73.
Mary Pace-Balzan - 19:14.3
