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November 3, 2006 > Sports > Men’s cross country places third at C-USA

Men’s cross country places third at C-USA

By Stephen Whitfield | Thresher Editorial Staff

Competing without two of its top runners, the men’s cross country team finished a distant third at the Conference USA Men’s Cross Country Championships last Saturday. At the eight-kilometer meet, held at Lake Kristi near Greenville, N.C., redshirt sophomore Aaron Robson and senior Pablo Solares provided Rice’s lone top-ten individual times. The University of Texas-El Paso, led by two-time individual champion Patrick Mutai, won the meet with 21 points, while Tulsa University finished with 40 and the Owls scored 70.

Robson and Solares were both named second-team all-conference after the meet.

Robson’s seventh-place finish at the C-USA meet was hardly a surprise. He placed in the top ten in two of the three meets Rice ran this season, including the Arizona State Invitational Oct. 7. At that meet, the only other 8k meet on the Owls’ schedule, Robson ran 25 minutes, 25 seconds and placed tenth. In North Carolina, he ran 25:39 — 14 seconds slower — but still placed three spots higher. The slower time was due to the strong winds in the area, which consistently blew around 20 to 25 miles per hour.

Robson said that because of the winds he had to run more conservatively early in the race to conserve his energy.

“We hung a little bit further back early in the race,” Robson said. “[I was] able to sit in a pack of runners and get out of the wind. Running like that for the first three or four [kilometers] of the race, it gave you a lot more energy for the last [kilometer] or so, so that you could pick off the people that had been struggling a little bit.”

Unlike Robson, Solares could not use the wind to his advantage. Solares, whose strength is shorter distances during the indoor and outdoor track seasons, had a breakout year in cross country, placing no lower than fourth in all of the Owls’ meets. At the C-USA meet, however, he suffered. Taller runners generally have more difficulty running in strong winds, usually tiring out earlier than shorter runners.

After running near the front of the pack for most of the race, Solares, who is six feet, three inches tall, fell back and finished 10th with a time of 25:50.

Robson said Solares’ early front-running was too much to maintain.

“Those conditions meant that strategy, tactics and such played a heavier role than it usually does in cross country races,” Robson said. “That was why Pablo didn’t run as well as he probably could have. He got stuck in between two groups of runners, and he was running on his own for most of the time.”

Perhaps the biggest surprise of the entire meet was sophomore Justin Maxwell, who ran 26:04 to place 13th. Maxwell was named to the all-C-USA third team after the meet. Maxwell had just two top-20 finishes in his collegiate career coming into this meet. At last year’s C-USA Championships, he finished 31st. Like Robson, Maxwell made his charge late in the race after running near the back of the pack early.

“With the season so short, you come in training with the hope that at this time of year things fall into place,” head coach Jon Warren (Jones ‘88) said. “It apparently worked with Justin. We trained hard all year and cut back [before the C-USA meet], and it seemed to work a little better for him than it did for everyone else.”

The other two scorers for Rice were sophomore Brad Morris, who finished 19th with a time of 26:34, and redshirt sophomore Brett Olson, who ran 26:39 to place 21st. Only one other Owl — sophomore Alex Solomon — placed in the top 25.

The team went to North Carolina without junior Charles Hampton, the top returning scorer from last year’s C-USA Championships, and freshman Simon Bucknell, who had emerged as one of Rice’s best runners with top-10 finishes in his first two meets. Hampton has battled back problems all season and hasn’t raced since the first meet of the year, the Rice Invitational Sept. 9. Bucknell had a bout of pneumonia earlier in the season and, while recovering from that illness, strained his Achilles’ tendon.

Given that UTEP placed four runners in the top six, it is unlikely that Hampton and Bucknell’s presence would have led the Owls to their first conference title in three years. However, Warren said the team might have had a good chance at second place if it was running at full strength.

“It would have been interesting if we’d had them, assuming they ran well, [because] it would have put us in the mix with Tulsa,” Warren said. “With those five [UTEP runners], I don’t think it would have made a difference as far as running the meet. ”

Up next for Rice is the NCAA South Central Regional Championships, to be held next Saturday in Waco. The top two teams at the regional meet automatically qualify for the NCAA Championships, and with the South Central region consisting of two top-10 finishers from last year’s national championships — the University of Arkansas and the University of Texas — the Owls’ chances of extending their season past next weekend are slim at best.

Robson said he views the regional meet as an chance to gain valuable experience.

“I highly doubt anyone is going to make it out of the region outside of [Arkansas and Texas],” Robson said. “We have to look forward more to the future, getting some experience in at the very least. We’re missing Charles Hampton and Simon Bucknell. With them on the team, I think we would have had a much better shot at challenging.”

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