Oct. 11, 2003
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - The Purdue cross country teams traveled south of the Mason-Dixon line on Friday, Oct. 10, for the Auburn Invitational, with the women's team finishing fourth out of 32 teams and the men's squad ninth out of 29.
Mississippi State won the team title in the women's 5K event while host Auburn captured the team crown in the 8K race.
Boilermaker junior Amber Ferner continued her dominance on the women's side, finishing as the top Purdue runner for the fifth consecutive race of the 2003 season with an 18th-place time of 18:45. Sophomore Lindsay Zinn circled the course in 18:48, placing 20th.
Tiffany McWilliams of Mississippi State won the women's race with a 17:29 showing.
Purdue senior Kyle Orender placed as the top Boilermaker for the 11th time in the last 12 races, crossing the line in third place with a time of 24:55, just eight seconds off the championship time of Kyle Rabbitt (Georgia Tech).
Juniors Kara Lahey and Christan Bahler and sophomore Corrie Whisner joined Ferner and Zinn as the Boilermaker scoring runners for the women's team. Lahey placed 31st with an 18:58.4 while Bahler finished just 0.3 seconds behind her teammate in 32nd. Whisner's time of 19:14 was good for a 39th-place showing.
On the men's side, senior Jason Carlson finished as the second-best Boilermaker with a time of 26:10, good for 39th-place. Junior David Rae ran a 26:26 for 47th.
Rounding out the Purdue men's scorers were sophomore Dan Mathers, finishing 77th with a 26:53, and junior Jason Rahm, placing 132nd with a mark of 27:53.
The women's 5K field featured 272 runners while the men's 8K race had 259 participants.
The Boilermaker cross country teams are idle for the remainder of October, running their next race at the Big Ten Championships in East Lansing, Mich., on Nov. 2.