Men's and women's cross country teams win season's first meets

Junior Andrew Benford broke the Spider Alumni Meet record with a time of 15:03.2 in his Aug. 28 race to lead the men's team to a victory over Virginia Commonwealth University and Navy. Kevin Rhue, class of 2004, held the previous record of 15:06.8.

Freshmen Levi Grandt (15:38.9) and Tim Smith (15:45.7) had the fastest freshmen times in the history of the Spider Alumni Open, besting Benford's 15:58.6 finish two years ago.

Junior Garrett Graham, the team's No. 7 runner, spent last year in China and was one of five upperclassmen who lived in a remote cabin in the mountains of North Carolina this summer to train for the season.

For the women, sophomore Diana Filtz's time of 11:15.0 was 25 seconds faster than her time last year, and is the sixth-fastest time ever run during the Spider Alumni Open.

The top 10 places for college runners in the two-mile race all belonged to members of Richmond's women's cross country team.

Because only the top five runners get points, the women's team had a perfect score to shut out Virginia Commonwealth University, whose fastest runner came in 14th place.

Freshmen Emma Berry and Carter Norbo, running in their first-ever collegiate races, had the 15th- and 16th-fastest freshmen times for the two-mile women's race. Berry's time was 12:00.2 and Norbo's was 12:01.7.

Read more about both cross country teams in next week's issue of The Collegian.