Friday, September 28, 2007

UTA cross country teams still highly ranked

By Pegasus News wire

The UT Arlington men's and women's cross country teams are ranked 10th and 11th, respectively, in this week's South Central cross country poll by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.

UT Arlington maintained its 10th-place spot after a third-place finish at the Texas A&M Invitational on Sept. 22.

The Mavs were led by senior Jody Broccoli-Hickey with a 16th-place time of 25-minutes, 21-seconds over the 8,000-meter course at the A&M intramural fields.

Idilio Campos finished 17th with a 25:28. Ozie Hood was 25th with a 25:58, Armando Saldivar was 28th with a 26:01 and freshman Jose Balleza took 31st with a 26.15.

Arkansas and Texas remain the top two teams in the men's region this week followed by Texas A&M who moves up a spot to No. 3 after the winning team title at their home meet this past weekend.

The UT Arlington women's team opened the season ranked eighth in the region, before falling out of the poll, re-entered after a seventh-place showing at Texas A&M last weekend.

Freshman Annabelle Everitt (College Station, Texas) made a successful return home with a 24th-place finish with a time 19:09 over the 5K race. She was nominated for Southland Conference Female Cross Country Athlete of the Week for her efforts.

Rice and Texas shake up the top five on the women's side as both programs enter the top five for the first time this year. Rice (fourth) won both the Rice Invite on Sept. 22 and the Texas A&M Invitational last weekend. Texas was the runner-up at the TAMU Invite but finished ahead of both Texas A&M (fifth) and Lamar (sixth).

Southland Conference members Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (seventh), UT Arlington (11th), UTSA (12th) and Texas State (14th) all enter this week's rankings in the women's region.

UT Arlington will compete at the OSU Cowboys Jamboree, Sept. 29, in Stillwater, Okla. The Southland Conference Championship is Oct. 27 in Corpus Christi, Texas.

Posted by Alex B.

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