FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Braving the heat, five Trojans set personal records as Little Rock returned to the Chile Pepper Festival against a field of more than 30 men's and women's teams.
The 37th annual Chile Pepper Festival featured more than 80 combined college teams on a near-ideal day for racing. The course is known for its quick pace, featuring both downhills and flats that allow runners to take advantage of its speed.
However, with temperatures around 75 degrees, the heat still posed a challenge. Even so, graduate Jordan Smith, junior Shane Fisher, sophomore Owen Church, sophomore Kamryn Baggs and freshman Eva Tice all recorded new PRs. Those performances helped the Little Rock men improve three team spots from last year's finish.
Smith and Church each shattered their previous marks by more than 90 seconds. Smith led the Trojan men with a time of 24:44.2, a 90-second improvement, while Church finished in 28:10.4, beating his previous record by over two minutes.
After the race, Smith shared his thoughts on his performance and PR.
"It was a good meet, with some pretty solid competition. I wanted to get out strong with the top 30 or 50 runners and hopefully move up," Smith said. "I didn't move up as much as I wanted, but I felt like I competed well. It was a good breakthrough race."
Fisher continued his streak of setting a personal best in every race this season, trimming roughly 40 seconds off his previous mark with a time of 25:19.9. Junior
Devin Stevens and freshman
Zach Morin also impressed in their 8K debuts, with Stevens finishing in 27:28.8 and Morin close behind Fisher at 25:25.1.
The Trojan women also turned in a strong performance in a crowded field, led by sophomore Aliyah Joshua, who came close to her personal best. Baggs and Tice ran side by side for much of the race, pacing each other to new PRs. Baggs finished 40 seconds faster than her previous mark at 19:12.3, while Tice improved by more than a minute with a time of 19:16.6.
Head coach
Jordyn Naylon said she was excited to see how the Trojans performed in their first truly competitive meet of the season.
"I'm really happy with the efforts today. The men really showed up and had a tough race with some surprises despite being in the middle of training. Women had a better effort today with more even races than our last meet," said Naylon. "I'm still building confidence with them, but they are moving in the right direction and we still have more work to do. Chile Pepper is a great meet to compete in and I'm glad we made the choice to come up and race."
Little Rock will have one more race before the conference championships, heading to Alabama for the Crimson Classic on Oct. 17 with a quick turnaround.
Full results for Little Rock can be viewed below.
Little Rock Women
Name Time
Little Rock Men
Name Time
For the latest information on Little Rock Cross Country/Track and Field, check out LRTrojans.com. You can also follow the team on social media at @LittleRockTFXC on Facebook, Instagram, and X.
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