After Friday’s cross country meet at the BSC Panther Invitational, the Georgia Southern University women’s team will not have as many butterflies in its stomachs as the Southern Conference Championship draws nearer.

The invitational was held at Veteran’s Park in Hoover, Ala., the same course that will play host to the SoCon Championship meet next month.

“We want our team to mentally see themselves being successful her,” cross country head coach Mincey said in a news release on the day before Friday’s meet.

The team did just that on Friday when the Eagles were led by freshman Ashton Lord for the fourth time this season as she posted a top-10 overall finish, her highest finish of the season thus far.

Behind Lord, graduate student Sherrill McFarlance took her best individual finish of the season in 13^th. Following McFarlance was freshman Brooke Stanley who finished 16^th and freshman Katelyn Chancey who rounded out the top 20.

Expectations were high for Friday’s meet, which came just one week after all eight Eagles posted their best individual times this season. But the team did not disappoint with half of the team recording top 20 finishes on the brand new course.

“We were definitely challenged by the course today and being able to get a feel for the landscape is going to help us when we return for SoCon championships next month,” Mincey said in a news release. “We’ll have time to really focus on our race planning in the next two weeks before our next meet.”

The Eagles next and last meet before the SoCon Championships will be at Appalachian State University on Oct. 18 at 3 p.m. for the Blue Ridge Open.