Cross Country squads start season at A&M

9/25/08 7:00pm

Men's Cross Country

Jonathan Myers, for the ThresherIn the words of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, "There's no place like home." Dorothy's words succinctly summed up the Texas A&M Invitational for the men's cross country team. The Owls were forced to take flight to College Station, Texas because of the cancellation of the Rice Invitational, and they never got comfortable there. The Owls placed fourth out of 12 teams at the meet, a strong finish but not exactly what the runners hoped for.

"We didn't perform to the level we expected," head coach Jon Warren (Jones '88) said.

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Rice, which finished with 149 points, was led by senior Justin Maxwell and sophomore Michael Trejo, who finished 20th and 25th respectively. Rounding out the five Owl scorers were junior Brad Morris, senior Brett Olson and junior Scott Zivick.

Olson also shared Warren's view about the team's execution on Friday.

"We definitely did worse than we can do," Olson said. "We can do better."

The 22nd-ranked Texas A&M University squad finished with four runners in the top five spots and took first place overall, with Stephen F. Austin State University and Tarleton State University taking second and third respectively.

Rice was without two of its top runners, junior Simon Bucknell and senior Aaron Robson, but Warren intimated that those losses should not have prevented the Owls from running at a higher level.

"I expected that we should have been at least second," Warren said. "We should have had three or four guys in the top ten."

However, that is not to say that there were not positives in Friday's race. Warren was happy with his top finishers on Friday, and he believes their performances could help boost the team as they prepare for the Penn State National Oct. 17.

"Justin Maxwell ran a good, solid race," Warren said. "I was very pleased with his race, [and] Michael Trejo's race was a good first 8K."

Warren seemed to believe that the Owls were not lacking in talent but rather just needed to put all the pieces together at one time in order to have a solid race.

"We came back [Monday] and had a workout that indicates that they should have all done significantly better," Warren said. "The fitness is there; the expectation is that they can run where their fitness is at."

Olson was in step with Warren on this philosophy as well, realizing that Rice would be able to put this race behind them and focus on the rest of the season.

"At least we know where we stand," Olson said. "We have a lot of work to catch up on."

The Owls also were keeping close tabs on their Conference USA rivals, University of Texas-El Paso and the University of Tulsa. The Miners manhandled the competition at the Kachina Classic held on the New Mexico State University golf course in Las Cruces, N.M. They placed three runners in the top five and all five runners in the top ten on their way to a first place finish. Tulsa competed at the Southern Stampede in Joplin, Mo., running just three runners, who all placed in the top 40.

Warren said he was not too concerned about Rice's main foes this early in this season. He did, however, indicate that he will be paying a little more attention to the conference competition starting next week, when the at-large point count begins. This point count serves as a tiebreaker for teams who finish outside the top two at the regional meetand can play a critical part in determining who makes the trip to the national championship meet in Terre Haute, Ind. The Owls will have an excellent chance to gain some at-large points at the Penn State National when they will face 10th-ranked Georgetown University.

"If we have a great day and they flounder, if we're clicking like I think we can, we should be able to run close to those teams," Warren said.

For now, the Owls will shift their focus to a small 6K race in Houston Oct. 10 in order to help prepare for their trip to Pennsylvania. Despite the Owls' disappointment with their race at Texas A&M, they still have plenty to hope for in the events leading up to regionals, and possibly, the national meet.

Although Dorothy only needed to click her ruby red slippers three times to get back to Kansas, the men's cross country team will need to sprint towards the finish line in order to reach their goal: the NCAA Cross Country Championship.

Women's Cross Country

Natalie Clericuzio

While the Rice football team struggled against the University of Texas this past weekend, the women's cross country team outran the Longhorns at the Texas A&M Invitational Saturday. Despite fielding three players battling colds and two dealing with leg injuries, the Owls placed third behind Baylor University and Southern Methodist University.

In two weeks the team will travel to South Bend, Ind., for the Notre Dame Invitational. There, the Owls will compete against national powerhouses such as the University of Florida, Florida State University, the University of Notre Dame, Princeton University, the University of Illinois, the University of Michigan and Michigan State University.

Head coach Jim Bevan hopes the meet will create an opportunity for the Owls to gain an edge in qualifying for regional competition.

"We're going to try and beat schools that will give us points to qualify for nationals later in the season," Bevan said. "You're trying to beat two or three schools that qualify in November from their region meet, and if you can do that, you can qualify."

At A&M this weekend, Rice came in with a small handicap thanks to Hurricane Ike. While the Owls were scheduled to begin their season the day the hurricane hit, they were eventually forced to suspend the opener a week. Thus, while Rice had not previously competed this season, the rest of their competition already had. The main disadvantage for the cross country team, therefore, resulted from the fact that the freshmen runners were competing in their first meet at the collegiate level.

"Some of [the freshmen] aren't used to running 5000 meters - they ran two miles in high school," Bevan said. "Some aren't used to running in a highly competitive field from the gun, so I'm just happy they got a chance to compete [...] I expect they will run a lot better in the next meet."

Additionally, this week's race allowed Rice to see for the first time what kind of teams their conference and regional competition will boastthis season. Both Baylor, a regional opponent, and SMU, a conference opponent, proved to be more competitive than the Owls had anticipated.

"You never know what competition is like year to year until you face them, and SMU is a lot better team, and Texas is a lot better than they were last year, and Baylor is better than they were last year at this juncture," Bevan said.

Additionally, the overall winner of the race, SMU's Silje Fjortoft, finished a full 36 seconds ahead of the second place finisher, Erin Bedell from Baylor. More than thirty seconds is sizable margin of victory, considering that the next largest difference between places came between ninth and 10th at 13 seconds.

Overall, though, the team's performance at the meet provided a number of positive points. Senior Lennie Waite, who finished the 5K run third overall and first for the Owls with a time of 17:13, improved her time from the same meet last season by 38 seconds. Additionally, Waite finished ahead of three All-Americans: Danielle Bradley and Nichole Jones of Baylor and Christina Munoz from A&M.

Waite was not the only Owl to improve upon last year's performance. Junior Nicole Mericle, who finished fifth overall and second among the Owls, lowered her time by 1:17, coming in at 17:17. Sophomore Allison Pye's 17:31 finish was 11 seconds faster than last year, while junior Britany Williams' 18:06 finish was down 27 seconds from a year ago.

Bevan believes this meet showed that the team has great potential for the season.

"I think we're better in the top three positions this year, and we're hoping to improve in runners five through nine," Bevan said. "Williams has also improved a lot."

Rice did not field a one hundred-percent healthy team this weekend either. Besides the runners battling colds after spending time in crowded hurricane shelters the previous weekend, freshman Michaela Reynolds and sophomore Becky Wade did not compete because of knee injuries. Reynolds' injury should be healed this weekend, but Beven said he is unsure if Wade's rehabilitation will follow the same timetable.

While Rice may not have performed as strongly as the team had hoped to this past weekend, the third-place finish was competitive considering all of the issues the Owls brought to the meet. Bevan said he sees the meet as a good starting point for the year and realizes that the most important thing is for Rice to be at the top of Conference USA at the end of the year.

"What's important isn't how you start the season, it's how you finish," Bevan said. "Overall I'm happy with where we're at but definitely not satisfied. We want to be competing for the regional title again in November, and Baylor is - I'm hoping - one of the teams we'll be competing with.

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