Marty Gordon
NRVsports@mainstreetnewspapers.com
The Radford University men’s and women’s cross country programs rewrote the program record book for the 4k event Friday night (Sept. 5), competing at the Virginia Tech Invite highlighted by Sophie Magson’s program record, the women’s program’s team victory and 11 new entries in the top-10 list across the men’s and women’s program lists.
Taking the course first was the women’s program who made a stellar team-score debut to the season, placing first in the field and ahead of New River Valley foe Virginia Tech. Magson, who placed second overall, re-broke the program record for the 4k she set last week with a new time of 13:47.4. Right behind her was Sienna Bailey who finished with a time of 14:15.9, which ranks third all-time.
The program’s top 10 marks didn’t stop there as Mia Farley finished with a time of 14:38.4, good for fifth all-time.
RU coach among nation’s best
The IWLCA announced Friday morning the 30 coaches selected to take part in this year’s IWLCA Aspire Assistant Coach Program, which included Radford women’s lacrosse assistant coach Elizabeth Wilson. The professional development program, which launched in 2024, was designed to align with the IWLCA’s vision to offer an intensive, high-quality continuing education opportunity for current assistant coaches. The inaugural Aspire class of 17 spots has been expanded to feature two cohorts of 15 coaches each for 2025-26.
“We’re so pleased the board approved funding for the expansion of the Aspire program for this year, allowing us to serve a greater number of total coaches in the two cohorts,” said IWLCA Director of Internal Operations and Programming, Danie Caro. “Last year’s program was very successful, and our hope is that strategically scaling the program to impact more coaches will result in improved professional development and increased retention rates.”
The IWLCA has contracted e.t.c. coaching consultants to plan and execute the program’s curriculum, and Sarah McQuade and Julie Muller will again serve as the lead facilitators. The parallel cohorts will partake in virtual and in-person programming throughout the fall semester, wrapping up in January 2026 to allow the participants time to focus on their teams and put their coursework to use during their competitive season.
