Women 2nd, Men 4th to Open Season

HOUSTON – Alyson Girard finished fourth overall and third among collegiate runners to lead the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi women's cross country team to a second place finish at the 42nd Annual Norry Hersey Rice Invitational. The men were led by Marek Sprierstersbach and Isaac Vargas who finished ninth and tenth, respectively, to finish fourth overall in the team standings.
 
Girard finished her team-leading 3900 meters in 13:59.01 to place fourth. The mark brought the new Islander in just 11 seconds behind the winner. Sydney Cole placed 10th to give the Blue and Green a pair of runners in the top grouping. Valentina Campos and ran a 14:40.64 finishing as the third-best Islander while veteran Cynthia Quiroga came in just 15 seconds behind her.
 
A grouping of four Islanders crossed the line within two seconds of one another as Bridgette Kozar, Liz Romo, Morgan McCutchen and Samantha Miller all finished between 15:13.80 and 15:15.61. Linda Garcia crossed in 39th position with a time of 15:48.34.
 
As a team, the Islanders finished second to host Rice, picking up 51 points. The Blue and Green went 1-1 in dual meets as the meet was also scored as head-to-head competitions with Rice and Houston Baptist.
 
On the men's side, Spriestersbach and Vargas crossed back to back in the top 10. The sophomore Spriestersbach finished at 20:08.24 with Vargas trailing just a second behind. 
 
Zach Harrach came across at 20:46 to slot in at 24th for the race, earning 18 points among the collegiate racers. Jordan Wright followed closely behind at 20:58 for a 28th place finish. Dominic Baptiste rounded out the Islanders scoring, finishing in 23:24.
 
The men finished in fourth as a team with 105 points. Like the women, the Islanders finished 1-1 in dual meets with Rice and Houston Baptist, as the Owls took the meet while HBU finished fifth.
 
UP NEXT
 
The Islanders next race comes at home in Corpus Christi on September 23rd as the Blue and Green hosts the Islanders Splash at Dugan Stadium.