Southeastern's Rop Foils Field at LSU

 BATON ROUGE – Southeastern Louisiana senior Henry Rop broke away from the lead pack late and won the LSU Invitational by over 18 seconds Saturday at Highland Road Park. As a team, the Lion men finished fourth, while the Lady Lions took sixth place.

 

Rop completed the 8K event in 25:40.49, while LSU’s Richard Chautin needed 25:58.90, finishing second. Southeastern freshman Joseph LeGrange, from Baton Rouge’s Redemptorist High School, had an eighth place performance, covering the distance in 27:21.30.

 

Rop’s victory was his second in as many weeks, having crossed the line first at theAzalea City Classic on Sept. 18 in Mobile, Ala.

“When we sat down and went over goals before the season, Henry didn’t want to talk about times,” assistant coachRyan Bourque said. “He just said that he wanted to win every meet. I told him that if he did that, I wouldn’t be concerned about times either.”

On the women’s side, senior Naomi Jeruto led the way with a 15th place effort, completing the 6K event in 21:59.33.

“This was the first test at the distances we’ll run in the Southland Conference meet,” head coach Sean Brady said. “We’ll make some assessments and see where we need to go.”

Houston won the men’s competition. LSU, Houston Baptist, Southeastern and Louisiana-Monroe rounded out the top five. The McNeese State women took home first place, followed by Houston, Tulane, LSU and Houston Baptist.

Next for Southeastern is the McNeese State Stampede on Saturday, Oct. 9, when the Lions and Lady Lions visit Lake Charles for the second time this season.