Higgins finishes second, Axewomen third in team standings

WOLFVILLE, N.S. – The StFX X-Women and X-Men swept both men's and women's team results and individual results in the Atlantic University Sports' second cross country meet of the season.

Individual honours go to third-year X-Woman Jane Hergett (Port Williams, N.S.) who captured gold in the women's 6km race with a time of 23:20.30, edging out Acadia's Madalyn Higgins (Halifax, N.S.) who finished with a time of 23:23.64. This is Higgins' second second-place finish in two races.

Hergett noted that the course was "really fun" on her first run of the course at Hennigar Farms, having not run the course at the AUS championships in 2017.

"I started a little bit conservative because I knew that the hill was going to be hard and once that was over I kind of let myself get up a little bit. With the grass and the hills, it was definitely harder than some of the other courses. It was really nice with the big open areas, the trees, and the view," said Hergett.

StFX's Paige Chisholm (Port Williams, N.S.) finished third at 23:28.08.

On the men's side, StFX's first-year runner Jacob Benoit (Windsor, N.S.) finished first on the men's 8km course with a time of 26:42.13. Benoit's teammate Graydon Staples (Oro Medonte, ON) finished less than one-tenth of a second behind the leader (26:51.16).

Memorial's Levi Moulton slipped into third place with a time of 26.54.94 on one of the more technical courses of the AUS season.

StFX captured top spot in both men's and women's team results with 21 and 31 points respectively.

The Dalhousie Tigers finished second in the men's team standings with Mike Rogers posting the top run for the Tigers. Memorial grabbed third place.

In the women's standings, Memorial posted 51 points for second place in the team standings. Jade Roberts finished fourth in the women's 6km standings. The hometown Axewomen finished third overall with Higgins posting a top finish, while teammates Jessie Armstrong, Sarah Lavallee, and Nicole Skinner landed eighth, tenth and 18th respectively.

"The Acadia Axewomen ran hard as usual. They put it all on the line. Still holding on to the bronze medal in the team standings. Acadia will need to get more runners up into the top 14 at the AUS championships to medal and to move on to the Nationals.," noted Axewomen head coach Ralph Williams following the race day at Hennigar's Farm.

The next AUS sanctioned event is the RSEQ interlock meet set for Charlottetown, P.E.I. on October 12.