The men’s and women’s cross country teams faced off under the stars Saturday night in the first Wildcat Twilight Challenge race.

Around twenty to thirty track and field members and other cross country supporters watched the runners compete against each other at Elmer Gray Stadium. With four weeks in between races, Head Coach Chris Woods said the event gave the teams an opportunity to compete and have fun at the same time.

“You can get kind of stale in that amount of time,” Woods said. “It was a way to keep us sharp.”

The men and women’s teams were each split up for their specific races. On the men’s side, each team member ran two miles, while the women raced 2000 meters. The event was scored like any other cross country event, meaning the team with the lowest score wins. Both competitions ended in a tie, and Amos Sang finished first in the men’s race with a time of eight minutes and 46 seconds.

“The guys ran hard and ran fast. Splitting them up into teams made them really strategize and compete all the way through the two miles,” Woods said.

Spenser Lynn, sophomore physics major from White Oak, said the event was a good way to showcase both the team’s talent as well as advertise for the upcoming conference meet.

“I thought it was a fantastic way for us to promote ourselves to the school,” said Lynn. “It’s tough to get people out to the cross country course because it’s not on campus.”

This year’s conference meet will be held at the Sherrod Residential Park on Nov. 6. If the men’s team wins the title, it will be their 20th consecutive conference win.

Lynn and Woods said they hoped the Twilight Challenge would become an annual event and the hope to start planning earlier next year.