Tony Parrilla Interview

JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – The Carson-Newman cross country team is getting set to host Maryville College in the Maryville Duel Meet at Greene Farm Saturday morning.

The Eagles are coming off sixth-place showings for the both the men's and women's team at the Berea Invitiational last Saturday. Freshman Lachlan Dickie was the highest-placed finisher for the men with a time of 26:51, good enough for fourth, and freshman Tori Gaul's (Salisbury, N.C.) time of 21:13 was the quickest for the women.

"I think we had a pretty solid performance. We are just trying to really find out where we are," coach Tony Parrilla said. "So the Berea Invitational gave us the opportunity to gave us an opportunity to see where we are so we can continue tweaking our training and we had some great individual performances." 

Last season, Carson-Newman's men's team placed five runners in the top-seven at the Maryville Duel Meet and the women's team grabbed all three spots in the top-three. Sophomore Sara Honaker (Mason, Ohio) took the top honors in 2013.

"Right now, we are doing a little bit of fine tuning getting ready for Louisville. Louisville is a big meet for just about everybody in the country so what we are doing is using the opportunity to have kind of a down weekend," Parrilla said. "Have a great quality duel meet versus Maryville and also I'm bringing in a guest speaker and we are doing a little barbeque and some fellowship with Maryville.

And that's one of the things I wanted to do while I was here. Not just have a cross country team, but I wanted to bring in a lot of the schools around this area and we could do more than just race and go home."

Sophomore Nick Guerra (Richardson, Texas) has had a solid season so far, finishing every meet that Carson-Newman has competed in second among the team.

"(Guerra) is bringing us some of the upper depth. Nick has a really good opportunity to place very, very well in the conference and right now, running number two for us and right now he is leading the group we have, the two-through-sixes."

The meet takes place Saturday morning at Greene Farm just outside the Jefferson City limits on Andrew Johnson Highway. 

-CN-