Cross Country Travels To Third Regular Season Meet

ATHENS, Ga. --- The Georgia cross country teams make the trip to Louisville, Ky., on Friday in anticipation for the Live in Lou Classic on Saturday morning.

When Do The Starting Guns Fire: The Georgia men will start the meet with an 8k race at 9:30 a.m. while the Lady Bulldogs will race in their 5k competition at 10:15 a.m. on the E.P. "Tom" Sawyer State Park course.

Who Is The Competition: Georgia will join a wide variety of teams in both of their races, including fellow Southeastern Conference squads Auburn, Kentucky, Mississippi State, South Carolina and Tennessee.

Weather: Temperatures are expected to be in the low to mid 50s in Louisville on Saturday morning.  Cloudy skies with winds just under 10 mph winds are predicted.

Henner's Thoughts: "Both squads will try to make improvements to their race execution this weekend.  In particular, we need to commit to maintaining the intensity for the middle portion of the race," said UGA cross country coach Patrick Henner.  "There will be a very competitive field at the Live at Louisville Invite.  This gives us the opportunity to work on our race execution surrounded by competitive runners."

"To be honest, we are still at the stage of executing our own plan and learning how to build intensity and then compete.  If we can make improvements from the Huntsville race, it means we are heading in the right direction.  Our training has gone very, very well the past two weeks but that training will pay off more by the end of the season."

What Dogs Are Competing: Georgia is expecting to have 17 runners competing.  On the women's side, junior Ellie Hall, sophomores Charlotte Augenstein, Sophia Baker and Aleesa de Castro and freshmen Katherine Law, Audrey Knoper, Ashley Thompson, Lorel Golden and Simone Rojas will represent the Red and Black.

Juniors Nicolas Fontova, Sam Bowers and Wesley John, sophomores Cooper Bocko, Noah Hayes, K.C. Heron and Davis Potts and freshman Ethan Nordman will take the course for the Bulldog men.

What Happened Last Time Out: Bowers and Hall had the top Bulldog finishes the last time out at the North Alabama Showcase in Huntsville, Ala., on Sept. 16 as the Georgia men finished 10^th and the Lady Bulldogs took 13^th.

Bowers made his season debut in the 8k and was 31^st with a 24:21.89.  Hall managed a 73^rd-place finish (18:14.45) in the 5k showdown in a race that featured nearly 400 runners.

On the men's side, John scored for the seventh straight time (bridging the 2021 season) after crossing the line in 52^nd.  The next three scorers were Bocko (77^th – 24:52.48), Potts (90^th – 25:04.11), who was making his season debut, and Hayes (117^th – 25:21.81), who scored for the second time in his career.

For the women, Hall complemented her scoring showing in all three of her meets last year by leading her team in Huntsville.  Baker scored for the first time in 2022 with a 78^th-place finish (18:18.15).  The 3-4-5 scorers for the Lady Bulldogs were Knoper (96^th – 18:26.86), who was making her collegiate debut, Rojas (106^th – 18:30.69), who is now 2-for-2 scoring in her collegiate meets, and Augenstein (125^th – 18:39.90), marking her seventh consecutive team top-five finish for the UGA women since 2021.

FAR & Away The Best: The men and women's cross country teams swept the Faculty Athletics Representatives (FAR) Award for earning UGA's highest team GPAs for the 2021-22 academic year.  The Lady Bulldogs posted a 3.64 GPA over the fall and spring semesters giving them the third honor of this kind since the 1992-93 academic year.  The Bulldog men posted a 3.37 GPA, marking the ninth time they have been atop the final standings.

The Georgia women were honored on Dooley Field at Sanford Stadium during the Bulldogs' opener versus Samford for having the top GPA of any UGA team.

Individual Academic Accolades As Well: Fontova, a native of Atlanta, was recently named the male recipient of the 2022-23 Joel Eaves Scholar-Athlete Award.  The award is presented to the male and female student-athletes with the highest GPA upon entering the fall semester of his or her senior year, based on academic hour.

Also Of Academic Note: The University of Georgia held fast at No. 16 in U.S. News & World Report's 2023 ranking of the best public universities in the nation, marking the seventh consecutive year that UGA has placed in the top 20. Georgia is one of only two SEC institutions to rank among the top 20.

What's Up Next: Following their third regular season meet, UGA will compete at the Weis-Crockett Invitational in Stillwater, Okla., on Oct. 15, which is also the site of this year's NCAA Championships.

The Bulldogs' postseason will start with the SEC Championships in Oxford, Miss., on Oct. 28.  Georgia will return to the Huntsville course on Nov. 11 for the NCAA South Regional and is aiming to conclude its season at Nationals near Oklahoma State's campus on Nov. 19.
Keeping Up With The Dogs: Updates from Georgia's track and field and cross country teams can always be found on Twitter/Instagram (UGATrack).

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Players Mentioned

Charlotte Augenstein

Sophia Baker

Cooper Bocko

Sam Bowers

Aleesa de Castro

Nicolas Fontova

Lorel Golden

Ellie Hall

Noah Hayes

Wesley John

Audrey Knoper

Katherine Law

Ethan Nordman

Davis Potts

Simone Rojas

Ashley Thompson

University of Georgia Athletics