Oct. 8, 2008
On the dry, flat grasslands surrounding the Texas Lutheran campus in Seguin, men's and women's cross country raced against teams from across the state last weekend.
The men's team, which finished in 6th place, was led by senior team captain Ben Sloan (32nd place, 28:07). He was followed a minute thereafter by a tight pack of Southwestern runners: Zach Freeland (38th, 29:10), Addison English (39th, 29:11), Sebastian Winkler (41st, 29:31), Allen Smith (45th, 29:44), Josh Gideon (47th, 29:47) and Matthew Broussard (49th, 29:59). Will Stephens (68th, 30:51) and Sam Marsh (77th, 33:00) brought up the rear.
For the men, the course was a chance to renew their focus on group running. Maintaining a pack "helps our spread in meets, but it also takes the pressure off any one individual," explained head coach Francie Larrieu-Smith. "The order of finish among our team tends to change each meet, but our spread remains about a minute between our top five." Indeed, the finish times between Southwestern's second to sixth place runners at TLU varied by only forty-eight seconds.
On the women's side, junior Tami Warner recorded her fourth consecutive personal record of the season at 23:25, leading the team in 6th place. Kristin Lahaie crossed the finish line two minutes later in 16th (25:40), with Kelly Parmet (38th, 28:14), Lisa Morse (42nd, 28:34) and Dianna Urrego (51st, 29:29) rounding out the scoring. Lili McEntire came in 65th place at 31:41. The team also finished in 6th place.
"Tami and Kristen are both 800 meter runners on the track, and for track-oriented individuals, running flat cross country courses [like TLU] are preferred," said Larrieu-Smith. The favorable conditions allowed both women to "race the competition rather than pacing through races," or running with a mindset focused more on time than race placement. "Often distance runners become more concerned with running the correct pace than on running the race."
The team now looks forward to a weekend off before hosting the annual Southwestern University Open on Saturday, October 18.
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