Cross Country | 9/11/2021 12:09:00 PM

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C.  Drew Topoly took individual medalist honors and he and his Methodist teammates captured the team title Saturday morning at the 5th Annual Monarch Cross Country Classic.
Topoly posted a winning time of 27 minutes, 1.65 seconds on the 8-kilometer course.

In the women's 5K, Caroline Stubblefield paced the Monarchs with a third-place finish, crossing the line in 26:35.09.

Fayetteville State won the women's team title with 28 points, 30 points ahead of second place Francis Marion University.

Topoly was one of four Monarchs in the top 10 -- Noah Carter (3rd place, 28:43.48), Xavier McLamb (4th, 28:46.87), Will Gray (10th, 30:50.32) -- helping Methodist accrue a winning total of 35 points. Austin Ezzell's (32:04.74) 17th place closed out the scoring places for Methodist.

Two other Monarchs earned top-25 finishes: Jackson Barriger (18th, 32:30.09) and Armie Haynes (21st, 33:08.79).

Stubblefield led the Methodist women, who finished the event with four runners, one shy of collecting a team total.

Madison Pompey recorded a 19th-place time of 30:44.26, while teammates Chakalyn Patterson (35:09.52) and Ainsley McGinn (35:09.86) were 37th and 38th, respectively.

Both the Methodist men and women will participate in the Queen City Invite on Friday, September 24. The Invite, a regular event on the Monarch schedule, is among the largest fields within which the Monarchs compete, regularly bringing in upwards of 40 teams each for the 8K and 5K races.