SFA Heads To Florida State Invitational
10/9/2009 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country
Oct. 9, 2009
NACOGDOCHES, Texas - Stephen F. Austin cross country coach Lou Snelling didn't learn anything new about his teams at last week's Oklahoma State Cowboy Jamboree. He's known from before the season that his squads were top-loaded with talent up front, and the Lumberjacks and Ladyjacks reinforced that knowledge with their performance in Stillwater.
They also showed their coach what to focus on for this weekend's Florida State Invitational.
The SFA men's team put three runners in the top 55 and finished tied for seventh in a field that included three squads ranked among the nation's top 15. In the women's race, SFA placed its top three runners in the top 50, including one top-20 finish, and took ninth in the team standings against a stacked field that contained two nationally ranked programs.
"We had a lot of good things happen last weekend," Snelling said. "I'm very happy with our performance up front on both sides. Our one-through-four ran really well in both races."
Junior Dennis Yeats, senior Keith Mahipala and sophomore Mitch Ownbey led the Lumberjacks home in a tight cluster that went from 39th to 52nd place and spanned just 12 seconds. Sophomore Harmon McClanahan was only 30 seconds behind Ownbey in 84th place.
"That 12-second split from one to three is just awesome," Snelling said. "Harmon ran a 25:48; for a sophomore on that course it really shows that he has made some big steps from last year."
In the women's race, Stephanie Ganter took 17th place and was one of just four athletes listed as a true sophomore or younger to crack the top 20. Junior Amy Shackelford finished only 10 spots behind her, and classmate Megan Jenkins finished 49th. True freshman Haley Parsons rounded out the top four by taking 64th place, just 10 seconds behind Jenkins.
"Stephanie and Amy really stepped it up and ran well for us," Snelling said. "For that level of competition, that's a pretty solid result. They opened really well and ran smart the entire race.
"Megan had a lot of experience going into this season, and it was good to see her use that to her advantage. With Haley you have a true freshman in her first collegiate meet. It was good to see her start well, and I'm excited to see what she can do as the season moves along."
The only thing Snelling found lacking from his teams' performance was depth behind the leaders.
In the men's race, the fifth Lumberjack to cross the line was Xavier Rodriguez, 35 seconds off McClanahan's pace, and Adam Saloom and Logan Smart were sixth and seventh, respectively, with Smart a full minute behind McClanahan.
The fifth Ladyjack to finish was Randi Wymer, coming across 26 seconds after Parsons, with Meredith Blocker and Marie Flores following up seven and 15 seconds later, respectively.
"We just need a tighter grouping from four to seven," Snelling said. "Our five, six and seven have to be closer to the leaders. We can't have that kind of a gap and expect to be able to do what we need to do at the end of the season."
The Lumberjacks and Ladyjacks will try to address that issue Saturday at the Florida State Invitational in Tallahassee, Fla. According to Snelling, the smaller field at FSU should go a long way toward helping the SFA squads run a smart race.
"With the Oklahoma State meet, there were 250 people our there running," the coach said. "That's a fair number of people on a cross country course. It means larger grouping and big crowds. In that situation, it's hard to zero in on that one person you need to be in front of to finish where you want to."
With hills and obstructions, the Cowboy Jamboree course resembles the one to be used at the Southland Conference Championships in Corpus Christi, Texas, at the end of the month. Saturday's track will be almost completely flat, but should offer similarities to the conference meet in other ways.
"This race should be a little more like our conference situation, where you can see everything you need to see pretty much the entire time," Snelling said. "It should be a useful experience for us, as we head toward conference. The other big thing is it will be hot and humid out there, just like it will at Corpus, so we'll have to deal with that."
-- SFA --
