LOGAN TOWNSHIP, NJ (Oct. 14, 2023) - In their final tune-up before the CACC Championships, two Lion Cross Country runners ventured into uncharted territory. Xavier Seals and Alec Valle each broke the school's 8K Cross Country record, setting new personal-bests in the process. The Lions continued to see strong results of late as they head into the conference meet.

Seals and Valle are the story on this day. They broke the record of Hussein Elmeshad who ran 25:42.2 at this same meet in 2019. Seals did so first and thus has the new school record. He ran 25:35.6 and finished in third place overall. Valle is still second all-time, which is where he was after last week, but bettered his personal-best running 25:40.2 for fourth place.

Those two weren't the only Lions in the top-10. Kyle Spector finished sixth running 26:10.5.

Finishing the scoring for the Lions was Ryan Pettrow and Max Salgado-Vidal. They finished back-to-back in 34th and 35th place with Pettrow running 27:37.9 and Salgado-Vidal 27:41.2. That time is a personal-best for the freshman Pettrow. Joseph Jamolawicz ran 27:49.8 for 42nd place and Riley Keffer 28:11.9 for 54th place to round out the top-seven. 

The Lions also got good days out of Thomas Rosky who ran 28:28.4 for 62nd place, Dylan Navarro who placed 96th running 30:07.0 and Sean Donnamaria who ran 33:56.6 for 123rd place. Rosky and Donnamaria's times are both personal-bests.

As a team, GCU finished in second place out of 17. Host school Rowan won the meet scoring 40 points while the Lions scored 64. Seals and Valle were actually the first two collegiate finishers in the field of 152. Thomas Cooke of the Kingsway Track Club ran 25:19.7 to win the open meet.

On the women's side, Georgian Court was without the services of Brenna Sullivan and Remi Reinhardt. They still had four compete, but not enough to qualify for team scoring.

Amirah Beasley had a top-10 finish placing ninth in the 6K race running 25:44.0. That's a personal-best time from Beasley who ran sub-26 for the first time in her career.

Behind Beasley, Madalin Jones and Niya Barden finished back-to-back in 31st and 32nd place. Jones ran 27:01.4 and Barden 27:05.4. That's a new PR for Barden while Jones was just eight seconds off of her lifetime-best. Selma Cazimoska rounded out the field for GCU running 30:39.0 for 57th place.

Rowan was also the team champions as they scored 28 points. Rowan's Emily Zanni was the individual champion in the field of 81 finishers, running 24:18.2. 

That concludes the regular season for Georgian Court Cross Country. They'll be the first team to compete for a CACC Championship in the 2023-24 season. That race takes place Sunday, Oct. 22 at Belmont Plateau in Philadelphia.