Sept. 29, 2008
After taking two weeks off to recover and rebuild, the Southwestern men's and women's cross country teams traveled to the annual Texas State Division III Championships in Abilene last weekend, hosted by McMurry University.
Once held exclusively at Southwestern, the meet is the season's prime opportunity for Texan Division III schools from different conferences to come together and square off, gauging each other's talent on a common course. This year's participants included Trinity, UT-Tyler, UT-Dallas, Concordia, Sul Ross State, University of Dallas, Southwestern and hosts McMurry.
In the men's 8k race, Southwestern placed 4th out of six teams. Leading the Pirate pack was senior Ben Sloan, coming in at 17th place at 28:30. Two places behind him was Sebastian Winkler with a time of 28:44 -- a new PR by 32 seconds -- followed up Addison English (26th, 29:17), Allen Smith (28th, 29:25) and Josh Gideon (30th, 29:37). Will Stephens (32nd, 29:47), Zach Freeland (34th, 30:05), Shug Evans (40th, 30:57) and Sam Marsh (52nd, 33:11) made up the non-scoring portion of the team.
For the women, junior Tami Warner clocked in a new personal record of 23:51 with a 5th place finish, beating her previous record by nearly a full minute and leading the women to a 5th place standing among seven teams. Kristin Lahaie followed thereafter in 14th place at 26:05, followed by a Kelly Parmet - Dianna Urrego pack (32nd, 28:46 and 35th, 28:50 respectively). Lauren Hamlett rounded out the score in 57th place with a time of 31:58.
Both teams will race again this weekend on Saturday, October 4 in Seguin at the Texas Lutheran Invitational, a flat course that promises fast times.