Women's XC to defend C-USA title next weekend

By Natalie Clericuzio     10/23/08 7:00pm

When classes and the Thresher took a break two weeks ago, the women's cross-country team did not slow down. Last weekend, the team traveled to Terre Haute, Ind., to compete in the Pre-National meet, so named because it is held on the same course as the national meet. There the Owls placed eighth overall, beating two ranked teams in Providence University and North Caroline State University, then ranked 21 and 18 respectively. The weekend before, the team won the Houston Baptist Invitational. The Owls now have a weekend off before traveling to Memphis, Tenn., to compete in the Conference USA Championship meet. The Owls will be running to defend last season's Conference USA championship. This season, the win will be more difficult to come by, as 26th-ranked Southern Methodist University has already defeated Rice twice this season.

Junior Nicole Mericle says the team recognizes the new challenge this season.

"SMU is definitely much stronger than they were last year or the year before so it's not going to be a cakewalk like last year (to win conference)," Mericle said. "Last year, we pretty much could've raced the whole field against us and won, and this year it's going to be a lot more difficult."

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Two weeks ago at HBU, the Owls began preparations for Pre-Nationals and conference. Even without Rice's top five runners, the team took first place overall, with freshmen Laura Hudson and Keltie John placing first and second, with times of 14:25 and 14:37, respectively.

Head coach Jim Bevan believes the race helped the rest of the team to garner some self-confidence.

"It's nice to put things into perspective," Bevan said. "We have a national caliber team, but sometimes the young ladies that might not be running at pre-nationals don't realize they're very good runners period.When you are competing at the Division I level, you can forget how good you are. .I think it did a lot of good for Laura's and hopefully Keltie's confidence."

Last week's Pre-National meet had the type of competition the Owls need to prepare for the conference meet. Forty-one teams ran in Rice's race with roughly 278 individual runners competing. Although the Owls placed eighth overall, that is only one place below their seventh-place finish last year. The eighth-placed finish helped the Owls rank 20th nationally this week, up four spots from last week.. They are also the top-ranked team in C-USA.

By finishing eighth, Rice defeated Providence, which beat Rice earlier this season, and NC State as well as regional powerhouses Brigham Young University, the University of New Mexico, University of Iowa, University of Georgia and Oklahoma State University. Outrunning these schools may help Rice to earn points toward qualifying for nationals if the team does not earn a bid based on its regional finish.

Additionally, Rice's top four runners all improved on their times since the same meet last season. Mericle finished first individually for the Owls and nineteenth overall, running the 6K race in 20:47. She improved 40 seconds and 45 places over last year. Senior Lennie Waite was right behind her teammate, finishing twentieth with a time of 20:51. Waite also built on her race last season, improving 36 seconds and 43 places. Sophomore Allison Pye improved five seconds and nine places, and junior Britany Williams improved thirty seconds and forty-nine places.

Mericle attributes her performance at this meet to the quality season she's had this year.

"A&M, Notre Dame and this race have each been the best race of my life," Mericle said. "It's just been a continuation of that, each race has been better than the one before. It just had to do with me getting in more miles, that I have two seasons behind me and that this summer was the first time I ever put in a solid summer training."

This meet also marked the return of sophomore Becky Wade, who had been battling an iliotibial band injury all season. Although Wade placed 151st overall, she was fifth for Rice. Additionally, her performance was as good as Bevan felt he could expect.

"She did an incredible job," Bevan said. "She had not run a continuous run over 12 minutes since July and this was a 22-minute race. . She had only been running for two weeks and not knowing exactly what was out there, she did a great job and she moved up throughout the race."

John and Hudson also ran at Pre- Nationals, finishing 251st and 259th. The meet in Indiana allowed these two to put more experience under their belt at a meet of that size.

After the Pre-National meet, Bevan believes in his top four, knowing they are better than the top four Owls last season. However, Rice is not the only C-USA team that has improved, making defending the team's C-USA title that much more difficult, Bevan said.

"I can't say enough about the challenge ahead of us because SMU is just the best team they have had in a long time," Bevan said. "We have a target on our back as defending champions. So it will be a good race between us and SMU and Tulsa.

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