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September 29, 2006 > Sports > Solares wins first individual title at UTSA

Solares wins first individual title at UTSA

Men’s cross country wins first team title since 2005 Rice Invitational

By Stephen Whitfield | Thresher Editorial Staff

Senior Pablo Solares led the men’s cross country team to an easy victory at the UTSA Ricardo Romo Invitational in San Antonio, Tex., last Saturday. Rice’s 20 points were well ahead of host University of Texas-San Antonio, which scored 48 points to finish second.

Solares and freshman Simon Bucknell, the Owls’ top two runners at their only other meet of the season so far, the Rice Invitational Sept. 9, placed first and second among collegiates at the five-kilometer UTSA meet. Solares’s time of 15 minutes, 7 seconds was just 6 seconds ahead of Bucknell and 21 seconds ahead of junior Brett Olson, who placed fourth among collegiates.

One of Rice’s most consistent performers during the indoor and outdoor track and field seasons, Solares had not been able to translate his success into cross country until this year. In his first three seasons, Solares notched only three top-ten finishes and never placed higher than seventh in any event.

“[Solares is] been a solid runner, but he just hadn’t made that one step up [in past years],” head coach Jon Warren (Jones ‘88) said. “This year, he seems to be making that step up to really be not just a good team athlete in cross country but also a star performer. He showed signs of being one of the signature athletes in any meet we go to.”

Solares now has two consecutive top-ten finishes (he placed fourth at the Rice Invitational). He is the fourth runner in the last four years to accomplish that feat for Rice, along with Marcel Hewamudlige (Martel ‘06), Adam Davis (Baker ‘05) and Steven Magness (who left Rice two years ago without graduating). Solares credited his improvement in cross country to a more relaxed attitude he began taking to the races last year.

“Since last semester, every time I get into a race I think about just having fun, enjoying the moment and running the best race I can,” he said. “That’s pretty much the mindset I’ve been using this season.”

One notable absence from the UTSA meet was sophomore Charles Hampton, the Owls’ top returning runner from last year’s Conference USA Championship meet. Hampton has been battling back spasms all season and may have to redshirt. The emergence of Solares and Bucknell may help fill in the void left by Hampton. However, Warren said Rice will need contributions from other runners who were non-factors last year, like Olson and sophomore Justin Maxwell, a sixth-place finisher in San Antonio.

“If Charles doesn’t compete … we’re going to lose something there,” Warren said. “But the nice part is we have right now [runners like] Brett Olson and Justin Maxwell stepping up. They looked good at our place, but they looked great at UTSA. Maybe it won’t be that big of a hit if we have people like that stepping up and performing in their spot.”

Rice has only one meet between now and the Conference USA Championships in late October — the Arizona State Invitational, which will be held Oct. 7 in Tempe, Ariz. It will be the Owls’ longest race of the season — eight kilometers, the same as the C-USA meet. Usually, Rice competes in a meet two weeks before conference instead of three. With the extra week of rest, though, Warren said he expects his team to compete hard at the Arizona State meet.

“The idea is to not hinder their performance three or four weeks down the line by focusing too much on the early meets,” Warren said.”We have a lot of guys who are short-distance guys on the track, so doing too many 8Ks is kind of a tough deal for them, [but] the expectation is that they’ll go to that well and really lay it on the line … at Arizona State.”

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