Stephen F. Austin
NCAA South Central Regional Championships
SFA Competes At Regional Meet
11/15/2008 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country
Nov. 15, 2008
WACO, Texas - The Stephen F. Austin cross country teams wrapped up their season Saturday at the NCAA South Central Regional Championships on the Cottonwood Creek Golf Course. The Lumberjacks were eighth as a team, while the Ladyjacks finished ninth, with both squads competing in a 17-team field that included multiple teams ranked in the top 25.
The SFA men placed three runners inside the top 50 and scored 251 total points, 39 points off the mark set by seventh-place team LSU. Junior Keith Mahipala paced the Lumberjacks with his 36th-place time of 32:25 on the 10,000-meter course. Mahipala is the only SFA runner this season to displace Dennis Yeats at the front of the Lumberjack pack.
Yeats, a sophomore, had been the first man across the line for SFA in all four of the Lumberjacks' previous races. Saturday, he finished 50th with a time of 32:51. The third SFA runner to finish was redshirt freshman Mitch Ownbey, who took 55th with a time of 33:00. A pair of true freshmen rounded out the scoring runners for the Lumberjacks. Harmon McClanahan was 64th, finishing in 33:22, and Xavier Rodriguez finished 72nd with a time of 33:37. Redshirt freshman Sam Hulse finished 107th with a time of 35:14.
In the women's race, true freshman Stephanie Ganter led SFA by finishing 36th with a time of 22:09 on the 6,000-meter course. Ganter has been the first Ladyjack across the line in four of five races this season. Sophomore Amy Shackelford took 49th with a time of 22:40, and classmate Meredith Blocker was 54th with a time of 22:44.
True freshman Brette Fleming-Wood chased Blocker in with a time of 22:45 to finish 55th, and sophomore Megan Jenkins was 66th with a time of 23:11. Sophomore Marie Flores finished 88th, posting a time of 23:49.
As a team, the Ladyjacks scored 246 points, just seven points behind TCU in eighth place and 24 points off the pace of seventh-place Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
Brittainy Robertson and Logan Smart, who both were forced off the course with injuries during the Southland Conference Championships, attempted to run Saturday, but neither was able to finish the race.
-- SFA --
