Nicholls cross country teams seek continued improvement as 2023 season progresses

Freshmen provided a good showing for both the women’s and men’s cross country teams in Nicholls’ opening meet at the UNO Season Opener at Lake Oaks Park in New Orleans.

“We were led by two freshmen. Avery Morgan on the men’s side set a personal best. The time he ran for 5K is right around what he ran for three miles last year in high school to win the state title,” Nicholls coach Stefanie Slekis said of the Vandebilt Catholic High product. “It was pretty exciting for him improve like that in the track season over the summer.”

Morgan ran the 5k course in a time of 16:11 to finish 25th in a field of 73 runners. Nicholls junior Lucas Futey, the team’s top returning runner, ran a time of 16:22 to finish 30th.

“Luke will be better over the longer stuff, and he also was sick. He didn’t feel great,” said Slekis.

“Avery is right with him in workouts. I think Luke hung tough and did a really good job of setting the tone. Avery just went with it and then pushed through when he could,” Slekis added.

William Bellin, a sophomore, took 49 seconds off of his time in the event from a year ago, Slekis noted.

“That was a big improvement to see and that’s exciting for what he’ll do over 8K this year,” the Nicholls coach said.

The Nicholls men finished fourth in the event. Tulane won the meet with an average time of 15:04, while the University of New Orleans was second at 15:24, and LSU third

At 15:35. Nicholls was fourth with an average time of 16:43.

The Nicholls women also finished fourth. Nicholls’ average time was 15:19 on the 4k course. Tulane topped the event with a time of 14:04. LSU was second at 14:09 and UNO third at 14:28.

Freshman Maria Nikolaou topped the Nicholls women with a time of 14:52 to place 19th in a field of 70 runners. Kassidy Besson, a fellow freshman, finished 22nd with a time of 14:56.

“Maria had only ever run 3K cross country before, and Kassidy had never run cross country before in her life. For the two of them to go out and break 15 minutes, they were only six to 10 seconds back from Emma Bourg (of UNO), who was Gatorade Runner of the Year from Louisiana last year. I think for our two freshmen girls to be right up there with the No. 1 girl in the state of Louisiana running for New Orleans is pretty exciting stuff,” said Slekis.

The Nicholls coach said she was pleased with the averages of both squads.

“The average time we ran, that really speaks volumes, especially on the women’s side. The women’s average was 15:19 for 4K, and I think that averages 1-7. Southeastern was 17:02. We beat their average by almost two minutes. New Orleans beat us right around 50 seconds on the average. They were 14:28, and they were defending conference champions and lost only one girl and brought in some really good girls,” said Slekis, comparing the times to two fellow Southland Conference competitors.

“On the men’s side,” she continued, “we were right off a minute off of LSU. We were 16:43 for average and they were 15:41. Southeastern, which is our next conference opponent, they were 17:31 for their average. We were almost 50 seconds ahead of them on the average.”

Up next will be the LSU Invitational on September 15 before Nicholls hosts its own meet on September 30. The remainder of the cross country schedule for Nicholls includes the Arturo Barrios Invitational at Texas A&M, followed by the Southland Conference XC Championship and the NCAA South Central Regional.

As the season advances, so do the distances involved in the races, according to Slekis.

“In the South a lot of the early season needs to build into that because it’s so hot and humid. Up North, you’ll see them running 8K for the men earlier in the year, but down South it seems like we always go 4K, 5K for the first meet. It’s 4K for the women and 5K for the men. The next meet, the women run 5K and the men run 6K. The next meet after that, the women stay at 5K and the men will run four miles, which is just over 6K. Then we get to mid-October and the men will run 8K and the women will run 6K,” Slekis explained.

As the first meet suggests, young players may play a big role for both the men and women’s cross-country teams this season. There also may be some depth.

“We have a lot of newcomers, but I think you know these first 2-3 weeks, we’ve already seen some pretty good workouts,” said Slekis. “It’s a big thing in country is how close can your spread be.

“So your spreads like from your first runner to your fifth runner. Sometimes we also talk about our spread all the way back to anyone who can be that fifth runner on the day. I think the nice thing for our men’s team right now is I think we have a solid top nine where any one of those guys can be 5,6,7,8,9. They could be the fifth guy on the day. They’re running really well packed up. That’s one thing we’re looking at is like how many guys can be in that group and how close can they be to that fifth guy, because that gives us lots of options if something doesn’t go well. In conference, we can run ten.”

“On the women’s side, same thing,” Slekis continued. “We’ve got a good nine. For looking at who could be the 5th girl on that day, I think we’re looking really strong.”

Elsa Rijpstra, the top female runner a year ago for Nicholls, has graduated.

Nicholls is looking for Sophia Harrison, a transfer from Wales, to replace Rijpstra. As an international transfer, Harrison didn’t compete in the opening event, giving her a little more time to adapt to her new surroundings.

“We have a slew of freshman girls that are looking really good,” Slekis said. “Megan Nevlud is back. Elaina Hanson’s red-shirting. Megan’s back, and I think we have a group of girls will be swarming around her. We have Maria Nikolaou from Cypress, Issy Rivault from Texas, and Kassidy Besson. She’s a local girl. They have kind of been separating themselves running closer and closer to Megan.

“Isabelle Seijhouwer, she is from the Netherlands. Her and Kalin Baratka, who is a returner, they have been working out together a lot. Avery Guidry is another local girl, and they work out together a lot, and Layla (Ingalls). It’s kind of like our groupings on the women’s side.”

“You think you have to score 5. You can win with just 5, but 6 and 7 can definitely determine a championship,” the Nicholls coach continued. “The one cross country championship I coached and won, our 6 and 7 were the reason we won because they were able to push back the runners from the other schools. They had a better top four than us, but we pushed back their fifth guy so far that we won.”

Meanwhile, Futey, a junior from New Mexico, will be looked upon to lead the men’s team.

“When I signed him last year, I think he’s just one of the pieces we’ve been missing,” Slekis said of Futey. “In our program, is just having guys like that that are just like all-around – and now we have so many of them. You just multiply it. All of our returners are just really into their major, into being a good student and an athlete.

“Luke just exemplifies that. He’s a high-mileage guy. It’s easy for other guys to respect him because he’s always running more. I think it’s kind of neat. You can have mid-distance guys as your top guys, which can also work great. But it’s neat when it’s a distance guy. He going two-hour long runs. We all do core waiting for him. So at the longer trail, he does core later because the other person that goes the farthest runs an 1:45 and he runs two (hours) on a long run. I really coaching Luke and I’m really excited for him to see how much better he can be a year later.

In our sport, being in a new training system can take that long for it to work for you. He and I didn’t start working together until last year at this time. Now it’s been a whole year and I think you’ll see some big improvements.”

Like Morgan, William Nizzo is a Louisiana product from St. Michael in Baton Rouge.

“He’s looking really good in practice and he’s someone trying to close that gap on Avery because he knew Avery in high school. They raced different divisions, though,” said Slekis.

“We have a group of six that will run back and try to be our 4 of 5 guy,” Slekis added. “That’s going to be Chase Walker, the returner, and William Bellina. Alex Hartine, he’s a freshman. Goran Duijsters is a transfer. Jake Fabacher is back, and Thomas Saunders. That’s what’s exciting. I think that group of six will work together really well. Only two of those six need to have a great day for us to have a good 4 or 5, so that’s why we’re really excited about it.”

As far as expectations, Nicholls has a two-tiered system when it comes to goals, according to Slekis.

“We always have like an ultimate goal, like your dream goal out there, and then a realistic goal,” she explained. “The ultimate goal is probably always very similar like we want to be a top 15 region team. We want to be top half of the conference or top three as you’re getting better. For women, I think we’ve gotten kind of very good at being the middle pack of the conference. We were fourth of the Southland teams at the pre-region meet last year. Then we had finished seventh on a tiebreaker at the conference meet and that was a really close spread, from second to seventh.

“So we had a bad day or everyone else had a really good day and then we went back to the region meet, saw the same teens and we’re fourth of those teams. I think for our women is like ultimate you’re now looking at we want to be a top three team. Realistic, we want to be in that hunt of the middle of the pack. Hey, hopefully, we have a good day, but if we have a bad day, it is what it is. Where it’s like we were on the wrong side of that swing last year, but we rallied back for the regional meet.”

Conference goals are a bit more modest on the men’s side.

“The men, we’ve been consistently beating Northwestern State. We started adding Southeastern to that list,” Slekis said. “Remember, I took over a men’s cross program that had been last in the conference for well over a decade. For us, not coming in last consistently has been a big accomplishment for them.

“I think we’re looking at it now, who can we now beat. Can we be better than Texas A&M-Commerce, who came in last year and they’re right in the back in the middle. HCU, they reloaded really well, though. So we’ll see with them, and New Orleans, how good are they now with their coaching change and some transfers leaving and stuff like that. I think our men, it’s trying to get ourselves up into that upper half of the conference to start, just like the women have.”

Then there are regional goals.

Top 20 in the region would be great for our men’s team to get there. And then you’re looking at top 15. The women have been 16th in the region before while I’ve been coaching them in the last two years,” said Slekis.