Morehouse Wins 7th Consecutive SIAC Men's Cross Country Title While Benedict Women Are Back-to-Back Champs

By ADD SEYMOUR JR.

The only bad news for the Morehouse cross country team this past weekend is that they didn't win the individual men's SIAC Cross Country title. Other than that, they dominated, as usual.

The Maroon Tigers had six of the top ten finishers in the SIAC Conference Championship meet to easily win their seventh consecutive championship.

Morehouse runners finished second, third, fourth and fifth (Dahir Mohamed, Chris Wilder, Gerald Jones and Shinlola Agbede) and ninth and tenth (Novian Middleton and Michael Wooten) to easily outpoint the field in the team category.  Benedict finished second while Kentucky State was third.

Benedict's Bessie Demlew, the SIAC's top-ranked runner heading into the meet, lived up to top billing as he won the individual overall meet with a time of 25:37.011.

On the women's side, Benedict's women were just as dominant as they placed five in the women's top 11 to win the women's team title, their second consecutive title. Jonnise Pierce (2nd), Jenella John (4th), Mikarla Swann (5th) and Astacia Watkins (7th) all finished in the top ten. 

Claflin's Carrie Byrd finished first to win the women's overall title with a time of 20:25.