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September 21, 2007 > Sports > Women’s cross dominates opener

Women’s cross dominates opener

By Justin Hudson | Thresher staff

The women’s cross country team opened up their 2007 campaign in the best way possible last Saturday, as Rice runners swept the top five spots at the Rice Invitational last Saturday. By sweeping the top positions, the Owls dominated a field that included six other teams, including Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, who finished a distant second to the Owls, 16 to 45.

Rice will now make its way to College Station to participate in tomorrow’s Texas A&M Cross Country Invitational, which will include BLANK, BLANK and BLANK. The last time the Owls were in College Station was Sept. 2005, when former Rice runners Anna Reeve (Will Rice ‘05) and Sarah Yoder (Baker ‘05) paired for a win in the 12,000-meter race.

Not surprisingly, Rice was led last weekend by senior Marissa Daniels, who completed the 3.6-kilometer course in 12:49 and led the race from beginning to end. And unlike last year, when Daniels maintained a large lead over the rest of the team, the other Rice runners were close in following. In her first collegiate race, freshman Allison Pye challenged Daniels towards the end of the race, finishing second with 12:56. Senior Lennie Waite and freshman Becky Wade also battled for top spots, with Waite finishing third at 13:01 and Wade finishing fourth at 13:10. Combined with senior Callie Wells, who finished fifth at 13:14 as an unattached runner, the core of the Owl team finished within 25 seconds of each other, a fact that has head coach Jim Bevan especially excited.

“That’s the difference between having a bunch of good individuals and having a good team,” Bevan said. “The tighter we can be, the better our team is.”

Pye contributed her strong performance to the Owls’ team first approach.

“I didn’t have that much pressure, ” Pye said. “It wasn’t like all eyes were on me. It was more a focus on the team, so it was a much better racing environment.”

Second place TAMU-CC had three strong runners — Meghan Lemke, Sarah De Los Santos, and Lydia Kimeli — who looked to break up the Owl pack in front. However, Lemke was only able to get sixth place at 13:22. Rice sophomores Brittany Williams and Nicole Mericle edged De Los Santos and Kimeli by finishing seventh and eighth with times of 13:25 and 13:26, respectively. Also scoring for the Owls was junior Lea Garcia, who finished 11th at 13:52.

Bevan said Rice’s performance against TAMU-CC gave him confidence going into the rest of the season.

“Corpus Christi had about three pretty good runners and they really thought they could break us up, but they couldn’t break us up,” Bevan said. “I’m really optimistic about our season right now.”

Two other Rice runners, junior Claire Shorall and freshman Frances Kellerman, placed in the top 20. Shorall finished 13th with a time of 14:19, while Kellerman’s time of 14:24 earned her 15th place. Junior Laura Hudson, who finished with a time of 14:46, barely missed the top 20, finishing in 21st place. Rounding out Rice’s runners were senior Jessica Cox, who finished 26th with a time of 14:52, and freshman Rebecca Sagastegui, who ran unattached and placed right behind Cox at 27th with a time of 15:02.

The performances of Pye, Wade and Kellerman particularly stood out, especially as the team readies itself for longer races that they are better prepared for, Bevan said.

“Pye looked better as the race went on and she actually closed a little bit of the gap on Marissa,” Bevan said. “Wade hadn’t run a race since November and that was a tremendous opening for her. And Kellerman had a very, very good race for her first college race and she closed at the end. … In fact, they all are going to perform well the longer the races are.”

End of article

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