SFA Men and Women Both Take Fifth Place at Southland Conference Championships

Friday, October 27

Abilene, Texas

ALL DAY

Stephen F. Austin

SLC Conference Championships

SFA Men and Women Both Take Fifth Place at Southland Conference Championships

10/27/2017 10:57:00 AM | Cross Country, Men's Cross Country, Women's Cross Country

Photo courtesy of Southland Conference

By: Kevin Meyer | Assistant Director of Athletic Media Relations

Women's Results
Men's Results

ABILENE, Texas-- The men's and women's cross country teams battled through heavy winds and cold temperatures at the 2017 Southland Conference Cross Country Championships on Friday morning, leading to a fifth place finish for both the men's and women's teams. The women would place three runners in the top 20 on the way to a team score of 103, while the men placed three inside the top-30 to finish with 137 points. Host Abilene Christian captured the team title in the women's race, while the Lamar men's squad ran away with their fifth team title in as many years.

Abilene Christian scored 44 points to win the women's title, followed by Lamar with 73 in second, McNeese with 80 in third, Texas A & M Corpus Christi in fourth with 91 and SFA in fifth. On the men's side, Lamar notched 42 points to tie with second-place McNeese, but won the championship on a tie-breaker. Incarnate Word came in third with 99 points, followed by Central Arkansas in fourth with 122 and SFA in fifth.

"On the women's side I thought we raced about as well as we could've, but to finish fifth on both sides just leaves a sour taste in your mouth", said SFA cross country coach Cody Clark. "Our conference is getting a lot better, and a combination of injuries and youth led to some growing pains for us, we're a completely different team than last year. We'll get ready for the region meet, see if we can get some redemption there, and then we'll take a little break and get ready for track season."

SFA was led by senior Brittany Innis and sophomore Taryn Surratt, who finished ninth and tenth with times of 21:39 and 21:42, respectively. Coming in at 19^th was freshman Christina Hernandez with a time of 22:21, followed by Courtney High at 30^th with a time of 22:37. Elizabeth Guerra came in 35^th with a time of 22:52, while Claire Crone (44^th, 23:14), Kelsey Ramirez (51^st, 23:29) and LaSean Davis (64^th, 23:55) rounded out the lineup for SFA.

"Brittany and Taryn ran well, they both placed better than they did last year", said Clark. "We were able to get Courtney (High) back into the mix today, and for her to be our fourth girl today without a lot of training says a lot about her and how she raced, so I was very happy about that. On the guys side we had some people race better, but we were fifth in the conference, which isn't what we wanted."

On the men's side, Erick Rotich paced the Lumberjacks with a 25:18 time to finish 20^th overall. Evan Barron and Quinlin McGregor finished at 26^th and 27^th with times of 25:29 and 25:30, respectively, while Larry Deramus was close behind at 31^st overall with a time of 25:47. Freshman Caleb Pickett recorded a time of 25:50 to finish at 33^rd overall, while classmate Jeremy Rich finished 51^st overall with a time of 26:22. Pedro Flores (62^nd, 26:50) and John Shirk (67^th, 27:27) rounded out the lineup for SFA.

-SFA-