COLUMBIA, Mo. – Saint Louis officially opened the cross country season on Thursday morning at the Mizzou XC Opener at the University of Missouri.
 
In the men's 6K, George Blanco, Tyler Schweizer and Lukasz Iwanowski led the small SLU contingent. Nicole Marco, Jordan Kantola and Lea Devantier were the Billikens' leaders in the women's 5K.
 
"I'm pleased with the way we started our season today," SLU head coach Jon Bell said. "These early season meets are difficult to evaluate, as we've only been on campus for 14 days. Our goal with both the men's and women's team were to execute a race plan and run within ourselves. Both groups did an excellent job of that. Our target is to perform our best at the A-10 Championships at the end of October, so this was just the first steps in that building process."
 
Blanco placed 17th among men's collegiate runners with a 6K time of 19:08.9. Marco's time of 18:35.1 was a 5K PR and was good for 20th overall.
 
The Billikens are back in action on Saturday, Sept. 17, for the Billiken XC Invitational at Jefferson Barracks Park in south St. Louis County.