THE RUNDOWN
GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas - The Baylor men's and women's cross country teams both recorded second-place team finishes at the UTA Season Opener on Saturday.

With both squads running 5,000-meter races at Lynn Creek Park, the Lady Bears led off the morning tallying a team score of 56. Redshirt freshman Madie Zimmerman was the top runner for BU turning in a time of 18:04.0 to be seventh, while senior Bree Schrader was close behind in eighth with a mark of 18:17.6.

On the men's side, freshman Eric Anderson was the lead Bear tallying a third-place finish in 15:07.6. Meanwhile, junior Kyle Scanlan took sixth in 15:14.19 to help the Bears keep their team score low at 42.

HIGHLIGHTS
• Baylor had a total of 17 girls competing in the event, while the men only had eight runners.

• There were four men's teams (Baylor, North Texas, TCU and UT-Arlington) and five women's teams (Baylor, North Texas, SMU, TCU, and UT-Arlington) at the meet.

• The women's other scoring runners included senior Courtney Cox (12th, 18:36.1), junior Gretta Smith (13th, 18:36.3) and senior Sarah Guhl (16th, 18:54.8).
• Baylor's third, fourth and fifth-place runners on the men's side were senior Jonathan Tijerina (9th, 15:21.9), sophomore Jordan West (11th, 15:31.1) and junior Chris McElroy (13th, 15:47.7).

• Anderson was the top runner for the men for a second straight race, after taking fifth at the Bear Twilight Invitational two weeks ago.

• The women held off third-place TCU (61) by five points and were 26 points behind SMU (30) for first.

• The men finished 23 points off first place UT-Arlington (19) and beat third-place North Texas (77) by 35 points.

• Baylor women's team was without top runners Alex Davis, Ann-Marie Dunlap, Erin Hegarty, Rachel Johnson, Mariah Kelly, Maggie Montoya and Peyton Thomas. The men raced without Matt Galvin, Derwin Graham and JR Hardy.

STAT OF THE MEET
13 - All five of Baylor's scoring runners on the men's side finished in the top 13 runners overall.

TOP QUOTE #1
"UTA looked really good, but it was their home meet and they picked the distance. However, I am pretty happy with the way the guys raced. We are still training hard and this was another chunk of workouts that they embraced. Seeing Eric (Anderson) finish that high is really encouraging. Late in the season I hope to be ahead of UTA. I think when we get some guys back and get a longer race, we will be in better shape to do that." - assistant coach Jon Capron on the men's team

TOP QUOTE #2
"The girls raced well. They were missing some leadership in the front, but Madie (Zimmerman) ran a really tough race and Bree (Schrader) was right there behind her. I am proud of the way they raced too."

WHAT'S NEXT
Both the men's and women's squads will be in action next week at the Texas A&M Invitational in College Station. That meet is scheduled to start at 8 a.m.