October 19, 2002

AUBURN, Ala. - The Virginia Tech women's cross country team picked up their fourth victory in as many meets this season, and the men finished fifth at the Auburn Invitational on Saturday. With thirty schools in the field of competition, the meet at Auburn gave the Hokies their biggest challenge of the season to date.

The Tech men, who finished with 185 points, placed behind Southern Methodist (52), Clemson (97), Georgia (150) and host team Auburn (183). They were led by junior Casey Frazier (Woodbridge, Va.), who took 13th place with a time of 24:35.02, and sophomore David Atkiss (Hatfield, Pa.), whose time of 24:49.74 earned 19th place.

The Hokies had five women place in the top twenty-five, as Tech notched 64 points to take the team victory. Host school Auburn came in second with 94 points, while Georgia Tech (97), Kentucky (98) and South Florida (104) rounded out the top five in the field of 30 teams.

Marlies Overbeeke (Rotterdam, The Netherlands) was again the top performer for Tech, as she placed sixth with a time of 17:09.57. Sophomore Jessica Morris (Coatesville, Pa.) landed in tenth place (17:20.32), followed by Stacey Vidt (Allison Park, Pa.) in 14th, Kim Milbourn (Fairfax, Va.) in 18th and Kristy VanCour (Evans Mills, N.Y.) in 21st.

"I was really happy," said head coach Ben Thomas. "The women ran their best race of the season by far, by putting themselves in the position to win. This will be good for them going into the BIG EAST Championships. They really responded well to a higher level of competition, the highest we have competed against this season."

The Hokies are now set to begin the final portion of the season, as they travel to Boston, Mass., for the BIG EAST Championships on Friday, Nov. 1.