Lafond breaks Souza's 8k record

By MOC Sports Information
Published in Sports on October 13, 2012 11:05 PM

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CHARLOTTE -- Mount Olive College freshman Dylan Lafond broke the school's 8-kilometer record and helped Trojans finish fifth out of 21 teams during the Royals Men's Cross Country Challenge at McAlpine Creek Park.

Lafond's time of 25:06.1 was good enough to place 11th individually and topped the mark set by Dalton Souza in the 2010 Conference Carolinas Championships.

Only one Division II runner placed better.

Lafond got plenty of help from his teammates. All seven Trojans who scored placed in the top 30. There were 189 runners competing in the event, the last for Mount Olive before next week's conference championships in Concord.

Aki Kitagawa (25:32.1) brought home 20th overall, followed by teammates Ronnie Sturgill (25:32.8) in 21st; Mike Munoz (25:38.3) in 22nd; Erasmo Ordonez (25:45.5) in 25th; Jamar Davis (25:47.2) in 28th; and Stephen Greco (25:48.2) in 29th.

Each of the Trojans' top seven runners posted times in the top 15 school marks.

On the women's side, Amber Thompson came within two seconds of matching a school 5k record, finished 27th out of 217 runners and helped MOC claim first out of 15 non-Division I teams.

The Trojans placed ninth out of 25 teams overall, beating out Division I teams South Carolina and Savannah State.

Thompson's time of 18:25.4 on the course was better than 73 Division I runners. Her time is the second fastest in Trojan history behind Chelsea Long's record of 18:23 at the 2011 Conference Carolinas Championships. Thompson was among four Trojans to finish in the top 100 Friday as Long (19:07.0) finished 54th, Megan Bucek (19:09.9) was 56th and Christina Jordan (19:43.7) placed 73rd.

Long's and Bucek's times are the 13th and 14th fastest, respectively, in school history.

Also scoring for the Trojans were Crissy Petro (20:28.1) in 88th place, followed by Emily Shaw (20:31.3) in 89th and Courtney Siefert (20:32.7) in 90th. Terri Bluebird (20:42.7) finished 122nd and Logan Shirley (22:48.8) was 170th.

In the team competition, the Trojans finished with 298 points to place ahead of 10 Division II teams, including three Conference Carolinas opponents. Duke edged out Davidson for the team title.