PHOTO | MEGAN GERBER - Joey Willareal, Thomas Harris and Andrew Striley runs as a team at the LSC meet.
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The Buffaloes’ cross country team tallied 144 points, capturing sixth place at the 2009 Lone Star Conference Cross Country Championships hosted by West Texas A&M University.
The men’s coaches were in charge of setting up the layout and preparing the eight-kilometer course at the WTAMU Horse Center.
Although the course runs through a pasture, there are many steep hills and winding turns.
The challenges of the course don’t waver the team’s preference to run at home.
“Running at home is a lot more fun,” junior runner Thomas Harris said.
Along the course we saw our friends and family, so it was more fun being able to actually see someone we knew as opposed to last year in Kingsville where we didn’t know anyone.”
Entering the meet, expectations ran high. Tarleton State entered the competition ranked 17 at the national level and Abilene Christian came in at 18.
“We try to get them to peak for these last two meets: the conference meet and the regional meet,” Paul Sweetgall, head coach, said.
These are the most important meets of the season. We consider the others as preparation for both the conference and the regional meet.”
The top five teams were Abilene Christian with 33 points, Tarleton State with 75, Eastern New Mexico with 109, Cameron with 118 and Angelo State with 128.
West Texas A&M took sixth place with 144 points.
“We figured that if everything went perfectly, we had the chance to finish fifth,” Sweetgall said.
We just don’t have the lead runner, the number-one runner, that some of the other schools in the conference do.
We looked at it realistically figuring the best we could do was fifth. We finished sixth, which I am still very pleased ok.”
Individual honors went to Amos Sang of Abilene Christian finishing the course with a time of 24:44.0 and teammate Cleophas Tanuiu with a time of 25:21.0.
Julius Krir grabbed third with a time of 25:47.0.
The first runner in for the Buffaloes was freshman runner Joey Villarreal with a time of 26:57.0 placing him in the top-20 with 17.
“Angelo State was right there with me the whole time, and they were pushing me from the gun,” Villarreal said.
I just battled it out with them. Eastern was right there as well, and I was trying to stick with as many Eastern guys as I could because they stepped it up this year.”
Sophomore runner Andrew Striley came in 26th with a time of 27:14.0 as WTAMU’s second-runner-in.
“I was really happy with my time and my placing, and I was glad my teammates were there with me,” Striley said.
I was really glad with how my other teammates did too.
Some of the other guys stepped it up this week too and ran really well.”
The third runner through the shoot for West Texas A&M was Harris with a time of 27:18.0, placing him seconds behind Striley in 27th.
Junior Rolando Vasquez placed 28th with a time of 27:31.0, followed by sophomore Jarred Murray who placed 46th with a time of 28:37.0.
Senior Jarret Kachel took 51st with a time of 28:59.0 while Freshman Michael Janousek finished in 53rd with a time of 29:12.0.
“Just about all of them had good efforts today and ran very good races, and I am very pleased with the progress they have made throughout the season,” Sweetgall said.
They have been improving meet-to-meet, and that is all I can ask of them.”
The Buffaloes will race again on Nov. 7 in Abilene Texas for the NCAA South Central Regional competition.
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