Fayetteville, Arkansas   The Women's Cross Country made a statement this past weekend at the Chile Pepper Festival by covering the 5K course in a team average of 19:36. The Lady Falcons placed 24th out of 48 teams and took down conference opponent Tabor. Friend's women also competed very well against all NAIA schools that were represented. 

Christa Follette was the Falcons top runner for the third race in a row on the course with a time of 18:46 to place 86th overall out of 331 runners. Nicole Ballard completed her second career 5K race to be the Falcons #2 finisher with a stellar time of 19:09 to give her another eight second improvement to place 116th overall.

Friends University Results

86th - Christa Follette – 18:46

116th - Nicole Ballard – 19:09 (Eight second Faster this week.)

143rd - Grace Camp – 19:38 (Seven seconds faster than last season)

173rd - Kara Zahariades – 20:09

177th - Payton Reaves – 20:17 (28 seconds faster than last season)

188th - Bethany Vonada – 20:24 (20 seconds faster than last season)

206th - Kayla Allen – 20:46

284th - Miranda Tenove – 21:31

"I am very pleased with the way our women ran this weekend in what turned out to be a very competitive race," said first year Head Coach Jason Parr. "Christa is in top form and looking stronger every week and it was great to see Nicole improve another 8 seconds in her second career 5K race as a collegiate athlete. Grace Aitken continues to show up and be consistent each and every week. Big shout out to Payton Reaves for stepping up today and being our #5 girl and improving her time to collegiate 5k PR.  Our girls are doing a great job of working together in practice and it shows when you see the massive improvements they are running each week compared to last season. Their success is a true testament to their work ethic and dedication to doing things the right way and training as one unit. We love racing against KCAC Competition and this weekend was a great opportunity to see some other NAIA teams we would normally not see. We are looking forward to competing at Fort Hays next Saturday. We are going to continue battle for the Top two National Qualifying spots at the Conference Championships in November."

Full Team Results:  http://flashresults.com/2018_Meets/xc/ChilePepper/