The men's and women's cross country teams kicked off our season yesterday at Live Oak City Park in San Antonio, TX. Despite the Friday afternoon rains the meet was a success on a number of fronts. First, for all intensive purposes it seems that the 5K course can withstand a cross country meet of the magnitude of a regional championships. I was pleased with how the course ran and how it help up despite a heavy rain the day before. Secondly, our men and women had good season debuts despite their visible dissapointment in their times. The rain was one factor in the slower times - as the wet grass and a few muddy spots kept runners from really opening it up. The fact that this was our first racing simulation of the season also contributed to the sluggish times. Nonetheless, I was pleased with our first meet. There were some good efforts and some good showings from the Cardinal and Lady Cardinal side.
Yvonne Rodriguez and Melissa Martinez won in impressive fashion over a pretty talented field. Yvonne took the lead from the very beginning and handed off to Melissa with a 25 second lead. Melissa then proceeded to hold that lead.
Maggie Callahan and Rose Caldwell teamed to finish a close 7th overall (31 teams) by both running consistent legs. Both girls looked strong in their first meet competition of the season. In fact, Rosey nearly caught the 6th place Trinity team in a sprint at the finish!
Shayn Weidner and Adrian Carrillo teamed up to finish 2nd overall to a Trinity pairing. Despite suffering from a painful cramp 2 1/2 miles into the 5K Shayn maintained his placing to hand off to Adrian in 3rd overall positioning. Adrian quickly moved toward the leaders, overtaking first and second place 2 miles into the final leg. At that point I thought we had the men's title sown up. However, a Trinity sophomore turned on some unexpected jets to race past Adrian in the final 800 meters for the narrow 15 second victory. Despite this, Shayn and Adrian both put forth valiant efforts. I look for both of them to be major players in the race for the individual conference championship in late October.
Unattached runners Jay Wilson and Jeremy Juarez ran strong legs to finish a close 5th overall. Both runners are training hard and redshirting this XC season.
Finally, Michael Cortez and Blake Bartosh teamed up to finish 13th out of 27 teams to give the UIW men 3 pairs in the top half of the finishers.
Both teams are off next week as we continue our preparations for our big trip to Notre Dame for the National Catholic School championships in South Bend, IN. We leave Thursday, September 13th for the Friday event. We will visit the Notre Dame campus as well as Chicago. Before leaving , we are planning a team long run on the shoreline of the beautiful Lake Michigan.
Check out the following link at our UIW athletics web page: http://www.uiw.edu/athletics/crosscountry_men/news.html#newsitemEEllyZuZklIeyClBaz
http://www.uiw.edu/athletics/crosscountry_women/news.html#newsitemEEllyZuVAZxwNGGTRC
Also, go to photobucket.com to see pictures from the meet!
Until next time...
