ELON, N.C. – Holding each other's hands and crossing the finish line at what looked to be the exact same time as three teammates, graduate student
Madison Synowiec ended up finishing .01 seconds ahead of
Quinn Smith,
Abby Beville and
Mikayla Jones, who all ran a 14:02.9 at the Elon Opener Friday night.
Despite Synowiec technically taking the top spot on the podium for the women's 4K, she refused to accept the accomplishment for what it was.
"I wouldn't say I got first," Synowiec said. "We all kind of got first, which was really cool."
Synowiec emphasized how the goal entering the night was not for any runner in particular to finish first. Instead, the Elon University women's cross country team had its eyes set on working as a unit to run and finish as one.
"Our goal was to just work together as a team and have a good first race, and that's what we did," Synowiec said. "Four of us finished together. That was really fun to stay together as a group and finish strong."
After an offseason of uncertainty, Synowiec was very pleased to see the women's performance Friday night en route to taking home the team title at the Elon Opener.
"That was really confidence-boosting," Synowiec said. "It makes us all really excited for the season I think, because we have a really deep team. A lot of girls are in a really good place."
With the meet hosted on Elon's campus, junior Caden Strickland found himself feeding off the energy from his teammates, professors and many others while running under the lights.
"I like working the crowd. I'm a bit of a showboat, but I love having my fun out here," Strickland said.
"It's so much fun," Strickland added. "The crowd was electric. I was running by all the girls that just raced. They were just hooting and hollering for me."
Although Strickland finished top-10 in the men's 6K with a time of 18:39.8, he explained that coaches instructed the team beforehand to use this meet as more of a workout and not to push themselves too hard.
"Placement wasn't really a concern," Strickland said. "Pacing-wise, it wasn't really a concern. Just got a good solid workout effort out there and couldn't be happier with it."
While Strickland was content with his sixth-place performance, he said he missed running with fellow veteran teammates like Evan Taylor and
Nate Mars. Although Taylor still ran, he was not "100 %." Strickland said he is looking forward to having Taylor and Mars back to full health later on this season.
"It was fun finishing first for the team tonight, but I would much rather have those guys there with me," Strickland said. "Points are points. The more points you have, the better the team does, and I'm all about team success."
The Phoenix will look ahead to the adidas XC Challenge hosted by NC State in Cary, North Carolina on Sept. 20.
'Rising Phoenix' is a student-led initiative to cover Elon Athletics. Through innovative content creation and storytelling, Elon University students will have the opportunity to highlight the moments, people and events that make an impact, leveraging the athletic department's various web and social media platforms for distribution. Follow Rising Phoenix on X (@EURisingPhoenix) and Instagram (@elonrisingphoenix). Interested in joining this initiative as a content creator (video, graphics, writing, storytelling, or more)? Contact Chase Strawser at cstrawser@elon.edu.
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