Cross Country Sets Records Again
The Georgia State Invitational cross country race was a day of record breaking by the Tech Golden Eagles.
Between the men’s and women’s teams, seven Tech runners set new personal best times for their distances. This landed both Golden Eagle teams a fifth place overall.
The front runner for the men’s team was John Greene, besting his record from last week with a 26:59 on the 8k course. Coming in right behind Greene was Matt Bishop with a time of 27:03.
Once the first two Golden Eagles were across the line, Michael Mahan, Adam McLeod and Charlie Jordan all finished with new personal best records.
The women’s team, in spite of missing two of their key runners according to Team Captain Traci Jones, set three new personal best records of their own.
“We have a young, strong group of girls that stepped it up on Saturday,” Jones said. “I’m very proud of everyone.”
Some of the standout competitors for the Tech women’s team were Peri Winborne, Rebecca Cline, Leah Bradley, Megan O’Donaghue, Emily Williams, Amelia McCoy, and Traci Jones. O’Donaghue, Cline and Jones all set new personal best records on the 6k course.
The Golden Eagle cross country teams will return home for the TTU Invitational on Friday, Sept. 30 at 3 p.m.
Tennis Weekend Recap
This past weekend, the members of the Tech men’s tennis team compiled more than 15 victories in a tournament in Knoxville, including a win in the doubles on the Goodfriend side of the bracket.
“Our team played pretty well for the first time of the season,” Coach Kenny Doyle said.
Five of those victories came in doubles matches and the remaining 10 came in singles matches.
Tech’s Justin Kirstein started the season off with a bang by winning an early Friday morning debut over Nicky Kunz of Davidson 6-2, 7-6, before his day ended in singles play losing to Xavier’s Richard Canales 6-2, 7-6(4). Kirstein teamed up with Ezequiel Gils in doubles play and they lost to UT Chattanooga’s Pavels Girgorievs and Michael Barroetavena 8-5.
Gils got off to a slow start losing his two matches on Friday the first 6-2, 6-1 to Liberty University’s Tanner Brown, and the second 6-2, 6-3, to Connor Sherwood of Wake Forest.
Vasily Eremeev got off to a hot start by winning his two singles matches. Eremeev won his first match 6-2, 6-3, over Xavier’s Michael Moe. He won his second match 6-2, 6-2, over Winthrop’s Luka Stanic to advance to the semifinals.
Eremeev and his doubles teammate James Crawford also won their doubles match, advancing to the semifinals. Crawford wound up splitting his singles matches losing his first to Matti Bourbon in three sets 6-7(3), 6-1, 6-7(2).
Crawford regrouped and downed Winthrop’s Chase Altieri 6-2, 6-4, advancing him to the semifinals in the consolation round.
Alex Chen and Syrym Abduhkailikov also paired up to win a doubles match Friday advancing to the semifinals.
Chen split his singles matches losing to Brandon Fickey of Tennessee 6-1, 6-3, although he responded with a win over Eastern Kentucky’s Nik Shroeder 6-0, 6-1.
Abduhkailikov also split his first two matches, losing the first to EKU’s Hugo Kilentovsky 6-1, 6-7, 6-3, and winning the second against Oliver Strecker of Liberty 4-2 (retired).
Saturday, Chen and Abduhkailikov won their semifinals match 8-4, against Tennessee’s Peter Nagovnak and Taylor Patrick. Their win propelled them to Sunday’s finals in the Goodfriend Doubles bracket against Xavier’s Richard Canelas and Marc Pretorius.
Crawford and Eremeev continued Tech’s winning ways as they downed Jordan Faith and Orlando Lourenco.
In the doubles consolation match, the duo of Giles and Kirstein took a loss at the hands of East Tennessee State’s Robin Asker and Rogerio Roberio.
In singles matches Eremeev, Chen, Crawford, and Giles all took losses.
Abduhkailikov continued marching through his side of the bracket by advancing to the semifinals because of forfeit victory over Adam Lee of Wake Forest. In the semifinals, he defeated Davidson’s Ethan Kalik. He is set to take on Wake’s Daniel Kreyman in the consolation finals.
Sunday, Chen and Abduhkailikov defeated Xavier’s Canelas and Pretorius in Sunday’s final 9-7.
The other doubles duo of Eremeev and Crawford lost to Xavier’s Mesa Mei and Michael Moe 8-6. Abduhkailikov also competed against Wake’s Kreyman but fell short 6-3, 6-2.
The men’s tennis team plays this weekend at the Southern Intercollegiate Championships in Athens, Ga.
For more information about Tech Cross Country, Tech Tennis and all of Tech Athletics, please visit TTUSports.com.
