ORLANDO, Fla. (September 24, 2010) – Lauren Falcone bettered her career best time by more than a minute and finished second to lead the Rollins women’s cross country team at the UCF Knights Attack Challenge on Friday.

The Tars women were third of five teams in the event, scoring 70 points. Host UCF won the meet with 29 points while Webber International was second with 65. Rollins’ men’s squad took fourth in their division with 89 points. Webber scored 35 to claim the victory and was followed by Flagler (40) and Warner (72).

Running in the middle of a deluge and through swarms of love bugs, Falcone blazed the UCF on-campus course in a time of 18:50 and was just 48 seconds behind winner Juline Brice of Webber. Her time was nearly two minutes better than she posted on the same course at the UCF Invitational earlier in the year. She also avenged a loss to the Knight’s top runner, Ocean Cohen, who finished third in the race.

Justine Falcone finished fourth in the race, stopping the clock at 19:24. Morgan Frost took 16th in 21:19 while Margaret Leibold was 26th in a time of 23:08. Tawny Najjar finished 36th (24:33), Katie Powell 46th (30:26) and Grace Nichols 47th (31:52).

Jesse Hugo entered the event as the defending champion and paced the Tars with a sixth place finish. Conditions worsened throughout the men’s race as the rain continued to pour, but Hugo still managed a time of 28:17. Joe Skydell took 12th with a time of 29:51 while Blake Pierce finished 23rd in 31:57. Keegan Casella finished 25th (33:46) and Bill Kennedy 26th (34:15).

The Tars harriers will be back on the course Friday, October 1 at the FLrunners.com Invitational.