Junior
Sherilene Gelderblom earned a victory in her first race of the 2018 campaign, guiding the FIU Women's Cross Country team to a victory at the UCF Alumni XC Invite Saturday morning in Orlando.
The men tied Miami after five runners for first place, narrowly losing the tiebreaker to take second.
Gelderblom, running in her first cross country meet since her All-CUSA 2017 season, finished first in the field of 41 runners with a time of 18:29.4, nine seconds ahead of the next competitor.
Anais Da Silva (18:46.7) and Rahel Gebretsadik (19:23.6) also placed in the top 10 for FIU.
Sabrina Quijano and
Sofia Fernandez rounded out the top 5 for the Panthers.
The Panthers finished with 34 points, enough to take the team title ahead of second place UCF, as the host school finished three points behind with 37.
On the men's side, the Panthers placed all five scorers in the top eight, led by a third place finish from
Eliseo Torres in 28:42.2 in the 8K.
Daniel Areces followed closely behind in 29:05.6.
Christian Alexander,
Jorge Areces, and
David Suarez rounded out the scoring for FIU.
FIU will be in action next weekend, competing in the Mountain Dew Invitational at the University of Florida, one of the premier meets in the state each season.
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SOCIAL MEDIA
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