Stephen F. Austin
Florida State Invitational
Ladyjacks Win FSU Invite
10/8/2010 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country
Oct. 8, 2010
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - The Stephen F. Austin Ladyjack cross country team packed all five scoring runners inside the top 15 to win going away Friday night at the Florida State Invitational. SFA posted a team score of 45 points to cruise past the host Seminoles by 37 points on the way to the Ladyjacks' second consecutive team victory.
SFA was competing for the first time since winning the Memphis Twilight Classic two weeks ago. Friday night's win also marks the Ladyjacks' second team title at the FSU Invitational.
"It was kind of similar to the Memphis race in how we went about it," SFA head coach Lou Snelling said. "We got out solid, held decent positions and made good decisions as the race unfolded."
With top runner Stephanie Ganter sitting out to rest, sophomore transfer Lauren Smith stepped into the lead role for SFA, finishing second overall with a time of 17:46. Smith held the lead for much of the 5,000-meter race before North Florida's Shelby Kittrell edged ahead late for the individual title.
Senior Megan Jenkins followed closely behind Smith, posting a fourth-place finish in a time of 17:49.
"The person who really stepped up today was Megan Jenkins," Snelling said. "She ran about seven seconds faster than she did at Memphis on a course that was much slower than everyone anticipated. She definitely took a nice step for us."
Senior Amy Shackelford was the third Ladyjack across the line, finishing 11th with a time of 18:07. Sophomore Randi Wymer was next in 13th place (18:14) and senior Marie Flores took 15th (18:25).
True freshman Becca Blubaugh finished 28th with a time of 18:56, and senior Meredith Blocker posted a 49th-place time of 19:32.
"I'm happy with where we've gone since Memphis," Snelling said. "We raced well and made the right decisions at the right points. I think we got everything done we needed to in terms of turning around and getting ready for conference here in a couple of weeks."
In the men's race, SFA had two runners record top 10 finishes and posted a third-place team score of 69 points, 14 off the pace of second-place team Florida.
Junior Xavier Rodriguez was the standout Lumberjack, posting a time of 25:04 on the 8,000-meter course to finish seventh overall and fifth among collegiate competitors. His time was two seconds faster than the pace he ran at Memphis, despite Friday's course running surprisingly slow, with the top finishers clocking in up to 30 seconds behind the expected pace.
"The guys' race was really interesting," Snelling said. "It was a little slow early, even compared to last year. We got out much slower. Everybody really expected things to roll on this course, and it didn't turn out that way."
Rodriguez led the Lumberjacks in with senior Dennis Yeats finishing just behind him in ninth place with a time of 25:08.
"X was our number one guy tonight, and he's one of our few guys who actually ran faster at Florida State than at Memphis," Snelling said. "He stepped up and had a good race. He and Dennis worked together really well for most of the race. You look at it and Dennis ran about 22 seconds slower than he did at Memphis. I don't think that's due to anything that Dennis did differently, it's just that X stepped up and ran really well."
Behind the leaders, junior Mitch Ownbey finished 18th with a time of 25:37, and classmate Adam Saloom turned in a time of 25:46, good enough for 21st. Junior Harmon McClanahan rounded out the scoring runners, taking 28th with a time of 26:03.
Redshirt freshman Nathan Collier was right behind McClanahan in 29th with a time of 26:08, and true freshman Moses Luevano finished 33rd with a time of 26:24.
"It you just look at the numbers without the context, it wouldn't look great for us tonight," Snelling said. "But when you consider how slow the course was, we had a decent race. We got some things accomplished that we wanted to get done."
SFA will be back in action on Oct. 28, when the teams head to Beaumont, Texas, for the Southland Conference Championships.
-- SFA --
