Men's Cross Country Places Top Ten at Gans Creek Classic

Friday, September 27

Columbia, Mo.

9 a.m.

University of North Florida

Gans Creek Classic

9/27/2024 1:00:00 PM | Men's Cross Country

Final Results

Pedroza Top Osprey Finisher For 31st Overall

COLUMBIA, Mo. - North Florida men's cross country had five runners finish in the top 100 overall, as well as a pair in the top 45, to place eighth as a team at the Gans Creek Classic hosted by Missouri on Friday morning. A stacked field featured 329 runners and 38 programs, including squads such as Stanford, Tennessee, Florida and more.

The Ospreys were headline by Robert Pedroza, who had a career performance against the nation's top competitors with a lifetime best mark of 23:55.8. The senior became the third Osprey since 2007 and the fourth time overall to run a sub-24 minute 8k XC race, sitting just behind Aidan O'Gorman and Nathan Jubran.

With their eighth-place finish, UNF placed over multiple Power Four teams, including Florida, Georgia Tech, Iowa and Kansas. They were also one of seven teams in the meet to have four runners in the top 60 of scoring individuals.

FINISH LINE

Pedroza led the charge for UNF moving up in each of the last four checkpoints to secure a top-32 finish.
Seth Martinez was neck-and-neck with Pedroza the entire way to make his way into the top 45 in Missouri.
He was just shy of joining Pedroza among the four Ospreys to reach a sub-24 minute time at 24:00.8.
Onix Ortiz Vazquez was the third Osprey finisher in 59th overall with a time of 24:14.3.
Cole Perry made significant jumps over the final three heats to go from 83rd to 62nd overall at 24:17.3.
Ilias El Khattabi was the most steady Osprey runner, improving his standing at each of the checkpoints to place 83rd overall to be the fifth UNF runner inside the top 100.
Sebastian Hernandez just missed the top 100 mark to be the sixth one among the group with his time of 24:38.2.
Eight of the nine Osprey runners improved their lifetime best marks in the 8k race.

PIGG'S POINTS

"First of all, it was a great trip and a great meet. Missouri is going to host the NCAA Championships next year, so it really starts to bring in a lot of people that want to see the course and get a feel for it. To me, it's the nicest course I've ever been on in my life. I may be biased being from here, but it was just a fantastic course. It was a great day with the weather being cool. In the past it's been hot, so it was a perfect setup.

On the men's side, they did a nice job. Robert [Pedroza] and Seth [Martinez] did what we hoped they would do. I think our whole top five just really did a nice job. Onix [Ortiz Vazquez] probably had one of his better cross country races ever.

There's a little bit of mixed signals because we know we'd like to run that again in two weeks. That's how I want them to finish; feeling hungry and knowing that we did fine, but we know that we can do better. It was an excellent race and we like where we're at as a team. We're in a good spot and we have a lot of hope for what we can do in the future. That was the key thought for me was that race gave us hope that we can really do some great stuff.

It was a great trip as far as the first-class meet, and the way Missouri takes care of us here is fantastic. It was a good experience for our kids and it really helps lead us towards Alabama in a couple weeks, and then the ASUN Championship at the end of October. It was an excellent trip all-around and really happy with the way things went."
-- head coach Jeff Pigg