Men's Cross Country Runs to Fifth-Place Finish at Southland Championships
11/1/2019 11:57:00 AM | Men's Cross Country
'Jacks watch two runners finish among top 20
CONWAY, Ark. - The start of the race may not have been the best for the SFA men's cross country team at Beaverfork Lake Friday morning, but the 'Jacks strengthened their position at every checkpoint along the eight-kilometer course to secure a fifth-place finish at the Southland Conference Men's Cross Country Championships.
Back in seventh place at the two-kilometer mark, SFA rose to fifth at the four-kilometer mark and third at the six-kilometer mark before settling for a fifth-place showing in a meet where second through fifth place were separated by just 10 total points.
Lamar (34 points) ran away with the 2019 league championship by watching three of its runners post top-five finishes. Behind the Cardinals were Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (120), Abilene Christian (126), McNeese (128) and SFA (130) who was led by Yoel Yoel's 18th-place finish in a time of 24:52.6
Yoel was followed closely by 2018 Southland Conference Freshman of the Year Titus Kiplagat who was clocked in a time of 24:54.5 en route to a 19th-place finish. The last of SFA's three student-athletes to finish among the top 25 was Michael Urbina whose time of 25:00.5 was good for 23rd in the 92-man field.
Freshman Parker Jones (26th, 25:10.8) narrowly missed out on a top-25 finish while sophomore Maxwell Murphy (44th, 25:42.1) rounded out the 'Jacks' top five finishers. Also competing for SFA at the league championship meet were Pedro Flores (49th, 25:52.5) and Ben Murphy (63rd, 26:14.3).
Lamar's Jordan Rowe won the individual title with a time of 24:01.7.
Up next for SFA is a trip to Fayetteville, Ark., in two weeks where it will take part in the NCAA South Central Regional meet on Friday, Nov. 14.
Head Coach Cody Clark's Comments
"We were seventh at the two-kilometer mark, fifth at 4k and at 6k we were at third. For us to move up like that with basically a bunch of freshmen and new people shows that we have a lot of intelligent guys on our team. They know what their bodies can handle, they know their fitness levels, and i told them before we came in that we can either be second or we can be seventh depending on what we did out on the course. They put themselves in the right position and when you look at four of the top five spots being separated by 10 points that just comes down to one guy beating another guy. Besides Titus, every guy set a personal best on an eight-kilometer course today. To a degree, we did everything right today but in a conference race you really need to be on your game because the degree of separation is so thin."
2019 Southland Conference Men's Cross Country Championship results
1. Lamar | 34
2. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi | 120
3. Abilene Christian | 126
4. McNeese | 128
5. SFA | 130
6. Incarnate Word | 157
7. Central Arkansas | 174
8. Southeastern Louisiana | 175
9. Sam Houston State | 206
10. New Orleans | 206
11. Houston Baptist | 241
12. Nicholls | 373
13. Northwestern State | 383
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