Women take second place at C-USA Championship
In eight days, the women's cross country team will run at the South Central Regional race. In other words, it's go time. Before the season, the team's goal was to qualify for the national meet. In order for that to happen, the team must place in the top two at Regionals. After last weekend's second-place finish in the Conference USA Championship meet behind No. 24 University of Tulsa, the team has to kick it into high gear between then and now, according to Head Coach Jim Bevan.
"I'm very happy with how we've competed, but I'm not satisfied," Bevan said. "I know we can run better. I know we're putting it together at the right time . we need to improve the way we race and our fitness, but it's doable."
The University of Texas and the University of Arkansas are Rice's biggest competition at the Regional race, with Texas currently ranked 25th in the nation and Arkansas coming off a second-place finish - only behind by a point - in the Southeastern Conference Championship race behind the University of Florida. Texas' ranking does not tell the whole story of its season, either. Just a week ago, the team was ranked 15th before placing fifth in its conference meet with the team's best runner battling illness.
Needless to say, if the Owls want to make Nationals, the team must place in the top two at the Regional meet. And although the team finished second at the conference meet, Bevan was encouraged by what he saw from the team on Monday.
"It's the best race we've run all year," Bevan said. "We did our best and we beat some other good teams handily. It was definitely the best cross country race [sophomore] Halsey [Fowler] has ever had, and [senior] Allison [Pye] and [senior] Nicole [Mericle]'s best races in two years. Our sights were set to win, our desire was to win, but our goal was to perform at our best, which we did."
Despite the team's best efforts, Tulsa simply proved to be too formidable an opponent, taking the lead in the race from the beginning and never falling behind, according to Bevan.
"Tulsa took the race out and never gave up anything," Bevan said. "We were in sight of them, but they never came back as a group. Halsey and Nicole moved up throughout the race, but Tulsa went second, third and fourth in conference, with three runners within 20 seconds of [Risper] Kimayo."
UTEP's Kimayo won the 5K race, finishing in 16:27 minutes. Rice's top finisher was Fowler, placing sixth in 16:57. This meet was Fowler's first to be Rice's top finisher this season.
In the conference meet, Fowler said the smaller field was helpful to her push to the finish.
"The field was so small that I was able to see who exactly I needed to beat and who was in front of me," Fowler said. "It was really different in the sense that during the race I was able to talk to my teammates Allison and Britany a little bit. At the end it was helpful when Britany was telling me to go and push ahead of a Tulsa runner."
Mericle was the next Owl finisher in eighth place at 17:04, followed by Williams in 12th at 17:11 and Pye in 17:12. Freshman Meredith Gamble's 18th-place finish in 17:36 was the fastest of any freshman and earned her Freshman of the Year honors.
Junior Marie Thompson and sophomore Heather Olson rounded out the top seven for the Owls, placing 22nd and 32nd, respectively. Additionally, redshirt freshman Farah Madanay and sophomore Aaren Pastor made their first appearances at the conference meet, both finishing within the top half of all runners.
Pastor's performance especially stands out considering how far she has come in the last year.
"Aaren came from the intramural cross country championship to running a lifetime best in the 5 K and finishing in the top half of a Conference USA field," Bevan said. "She and Farah made a big step in a year due to a lot of hard work."
Perhaps the most impressive feat of Rice's finish was that four Owls placed within 45 seconds of Kimayo, who won the pre-National meet and last year's national championship.
"To have four girls within under a minute of the defending national champion - that's as good of a team as we've ever had," Bevan said.
However, even though Bevan is happy with his team's performance, he knows they have their work cut out for them this week.
"Although we ran a good race, we're still a little off," Bevan said. "There's still room for improvement for almost everyone. But we are coming around at the right time."
Fowler believes that the team has what it takes to move on to Nationals and everyone just needs to have the right mindset to reach the team's goal.
"The only thing that we need right now to perform well at Regionals and make it to Nationals is that we just need to be confident right now," Fowler said. "We have the training under our belts. We just need to stay positive, be confident in our abilities and if we do that we have a good chance of making it.
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