Sept. 17, 2010

EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. - Competing at home in the SIUE CC Challenge, the Cougar women's cross country team had a strong, second-place finish behind another solid performance from junior Aftan Noon Friday evening.

"I was real excited with the results today," said Head Coach Eileen McAllister. "It was a good race and good competition, and I thought the team competed really hard all the way through."

SIUE defeated Western Illinois and Missouri Baptist in the dual meet format and fell only to Missouri State.

The Bears of Missouri State claimed six of the top seven spots in the meet on their way to the victory.

Noon, a native of Forsyth, was the only runner for the Cougars to finish in the top ten with a third-place finish, coming in a time of 18:49.

"Aftan ran a great race and to come back and run on a challenging course like this was excellent."

Noon continues to excel this season, leading the Cougars in all three events in which they have competed.

Freshman Renee Goodenough (St. Louis, Mo.) narrowly missed a top-ten finish crossing the finish line in a time of 19:58, for 11th place.

A pair of freshmen in Emily Conlon (Ballwin, Mo.) and Claire Brown (Petersburg) finished the 5,000-meter race side-by-side with times of 20:16 and 20:17, respectively for SIUE.

Hannah Lee (Jacksonville) and Megan Petty (Diamond), another freshmen duo for the Cougars, closed out the event with quality performances, recording times of 21:15 and 21:32, respectively.

"The freshman women again showed a lot of poise for how young they are, especially on a course with a lot of spots where you can fall asleep."

SIUE will be back in action after an extended hiatus when it travels to Springfield, Mo., for the Missouri State University Richard Clark Invite on Oct. 2, where it will face some fresh teams providing stiff competition for the young squad.