2021 Gumbo final - Book - Page 17
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thletes at LSU always push their hardest and go
the distance.
One group that knows the most about going
the distance is the cross country team. The women’s cross
country team had its most successful season in 2020, which
concluded with fifth place at the SEC Championships.
“SEC’s were super exciting because we had the highest
finish since 1999,” sophomore Adele Broussard said.
The season was different due to COVID-19 restrictions, but
there were still several regular season meets, as well as the
SEC Championships, which were held in Baton Rouge.
“We weren’t able to begin practice as a team until very late
August, so we missed out on a week or two of team practice,
which set us back a lot,” sophomore Jackson Martingayle
said.
He added that there were only two regular season meets,
and last season they had five. They also had to deal with a lot
of quarantine protocol on a few occasions, but the nature of
the races remained fundamentally the same.
Eric Coston, a senior at LSU, has been doing cross country
for 17 years. He said that LSU’s team usually practices six out
of seven days of the week in preparation for meets.
“My favorite part of the season is really getting to travel
around the country with my teammates. COVID limited that
some this past year, but we were still able to travel for some
meets,” Coston said.
He said that his biggest accomplishment would have to be
making the All-Region team his junior year.
Despite lots of twists and turns in the season, the cross
country team still had a great season. It beat many personal
records and pushed to be a great representation of LSU.
cross country