Stephen F. Austin
SLC Championships
SFA Takes Second In Both Races At SLC Championships
11/3/2008 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country
Nov. 3, 2008
NACOGDOCHES, Texas - The Stephen F. Austin cross country teams both posted second-place finishes and picked up Freshman of the Year honors Monday in the Southland Conference Championships at Piney Woods Country Club. This marks the seventh time in eight years for the Lumberjacks to finish in the league's top two, while the SFA women have been in the top three each of the last seven seasons, finishing first or second in six of those championship meets.
In the men's race, Lamar posted four All-SLC performances and took the team title with a score of 21 points. SFA had two all-conference finishers and three runners inside the top 15 to post a team score of 87 points, 42 points ahead of third-place Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
The Ladyjacks also recorded a pair of All-SLC showings and finished just 12 points off the pace of champion Texas A&M-Corpus Christi. SFA's 61 points bested third-place Texas State by 34 points.
SFA posted its runner-up performances Monday, despite race-ending injuries to Brittainy Robertson in the women's race and Logan Smart on the men's side. Both runners were anticipated to finish in their squad's top three.
"We had a lot of good things happen today," said SFA cross country coach Lou Snelling. "With the kids who were able to finish the races, I don't think we could have done any better than we did. If you told me our women would run without Brittainy and we'd still be second, I'd have said no way. Same thing with Logan. Without him running, I'd have guessed we were a fourth-place team. We saw a lot of positive things from a very young group."
The Lumberjacks were led for the fourth time this season by true sophomore Dennis Yeats. He earned All-SLC honors by finishing seventh with a time of 25:31 on the hilly 8,000-meter course. Redshirt freshman Mitch Ownbey was close behind, taking eighth with a time of 25:39. For his performance, Ownbey was named the SLC Freshman of the Year, marking the first such award for an SFA cross country athlete. Junior Keith Mahipala narrowly missed all-conference honors when he crossed the line in 26:00, finishing 13th overall.
"I was ecstatic with the performance we got from the guys who ran today," Snelling said. "With Dennis and Mitch taking all-conference and Keith just missing it, I couldn't ask for anything more from those guys.
"Mitch put himself in a good place from the beginning and gradually worked his way up. That's what all our guys did. Going in, we talked about having a good first mile. We needed to be in good position early but knew we couldn't over-commit. If you over-commit on that course, you pay for it. We did a good job from top to bottom with managing the race the way we wanted to."
A pair of true freshmen rounded out the Lumberjacks' top five as Xavier Rodriguez finished 27th with a time of 26:50, and Harmon McClanahan took 31st with his time of 27:03. Redshirt freshman Sam Hulse was 55th with a time of 28:18.
Snelling was particularly pleased with the way his two true freshmen answered the bell in Smart's absence.
"Going in, we knew one of them would be our fifth guy, and we knew that position would be crucial," the coach said. "Then, mid-race, Logan goes down, and they both stepped up. Having both of those guys run around 27 minutes on this course, as slow a course as it is, I couldn't be happier for them."
Each of the six Lumberjacks who finished improved on their time from last month's pre-conference race at Piney Woods.
In the women's race, SFA was paced, for the third time in four races, by a pair of true freshmen, just not the pair that might have been expected. Stephanie Ganter led the way with an All-SLC third-place time of 22:08, just 27 seconds off the winning pace of UTSA's Dana Mecke. She was named the SLC Freshman of the Year, a first for the SFA women's team.
"That was just an awesome performance for a true freshman," Snelling said of Ganter. "She put herself in that lead pack from the beginning, and, when that pack broke up, she kept herself right there. For her to run with those more experienced first- and second-place runners like she did is very impressive. She's definitely deserving of freshman of the year."
Classmate Brette Fleming-Wood was the next Ladyjack to finish, cracking the top 10 with a ninth-place time of 22:36 on the 6,000-meter course. Fleming-Wood made just her second appearance in the Ladyjacks' top three, stepping up in the absence of true freshman Brittainy Robertson, who was forced from Monday's race with an injury.
"I'm very happy with Brette," Snelling said. "We knew if she had a great day, she could be in the top 10, but we thought top 15 was probably more realistic. She really put herself up there in the beginning, stayed focused in the middle and just stepped up, big-time."
Sophomore Amy Shackelford just missed out on All-SLC accolades, finishing 12th with a time of 22:48. Sophomores Meredith Blocker and Megan Jenkins gave SFA five runners inside the top 20 by finishing 17th and 20th, respectively. Blocker clocked in at 23:09, and Jenkins was timed at 23:16.
Sophomore Marie Flores finished 29th with a time of 23:42, and junior Heather Adams took 37th with a time of 24:12.
As in the men's race, all seven SFA runners bettered their previous time on the course, with Jenkins improving her performance by more than a full minute.
The Lumberjacks and Ladyjacks will next compete on Nov. 15, when they travel to Waco, Texas, for the NCAA South Central Regional Championships.
-- SFA --
