Women's Cross Country opens 2024 season at John McKenzie Invitational

The Wiley University women's cross country team will toe the starting line for the first time in 2024 at Texas Christian University's John McKenzie Invitational at 7:45 a.m. Saturday at AP Ranch in Fort Worth, Texas.

Live results are available and the link is listed in the women's cross country schedule on wileyathletics.com. The five-kilometer course is grass and dirt and the runners will run two loops. This is the first time Wiley has run a meet hosted by TCU.

The Lady Wildcats enter their third season in the Historically Black Colleges and Universities Athletic Conference (HBCUAC), formerly the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference. Jean-Marie Farinha, Kaiden Taylor and Kyla Deyon return from last season's team - which finished fourth in the GCAC Championship. Track athletes Ariel Johnson and LaDaija Thomas join the team. Johnson won the 100-meter hurdles at the 2024 GCAC Championship.

Christopher McConnell enters his first season as head coach after producing three All-GCAC runners at Talladega College, guiding the women's team to a runner-up finish at the 2023 GCAC Championship. He brought in four runners. Remi Pierre and JaKatelyn Thomas come from Northwest High School in Opelousas, La. Elisa Clay and LaDaija Fitzgerald ran for McConnell at Talladega.

Wiley was picked to finish fourth by the HBCUAC head coaches and earned one first-place vote. The three-time defending champion Dillard University, Philander Smith University and Talladega finished ahead of the Lady Wildcats. Wiley seeks its first conference title since 2014 when it won the Red River Athletic Conference.

For more coverage on the Lady Wildcats visit https://wileyathletics.com/sports/wxc/index

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