FAYETTEVILLE, ARK. – For the third time in as many individual
races this season, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi runner
Shadrack Songok placed first as he led the men to an impressive
sixth-place finish at the Chile Pepper Festival hosted by Arkansas
on Saturday morning.
Facing runners
from some of the top schools in the country, Songok won the
individual title by 12 seconds over Abilene Christian's Nicodemus
Naimadu. Songok stopped the clock with a time of 29:22.1.
As a team the men
finished sixth out of 32 teams with a score of 223. Arkansas won
the race with 47 points as three runners scored in the top nine and
five in the top 13. Abilene Christian was second (74), Virginia
Tech third (162), Rend Lake College fourth (166) and Texas A&M
fifth (202). The Islanders finished in front of Auburn, Texas Tech,
Richmond and LSU in the top 10. A&M-Corpus Christi also
finished ahead of Rice, Baylor, Houston, UC Irvine, Vanderbilt
among other notables. UT-Arlington was the closest Southland
Conference finisher to the Islanders placing a 12th, while UTSA was
27th, and Central Arkansas 31st.
J.R. Pulido was
the second men's runner across the line finishing 37th in 31:40.4,
while Erik Burciaga was the 53rd scoring runner overall with a time
of 32:01.7. Scott Vance was fourth (61, 32:12.6) and Edward Kemei
(71, 32:30.5) fifth to finish for the Islanders.
"The guys really
ran well as team," said Islander head coach Shawn Flanagan.
"Shadrack continues to impress, but the whole team ran well. Edward
really sucked it up down the stretch to finish strong because he
was struggling after two miles."
The A&M-Corpus
Christi women placed 14th as a team out of 41 schools led by Lydia
Kimeli who finished 55th as an individual in 22:24.04. Kimeli was
the second Southland Conference runner to finish in the race behind
Lauren Merritt of Central Arkansas, who was 37th in 22:03.3. As a
team, the women were the top Southland Conference school as UCA
placed 24th and UT-Arlington 25th. Texas Tech won the women's team
title. The women finished ahead of such schools as Vanderbilt,
Samford, SMU, Tulane, Alabama, and LSU.
"I am really proud
with of our team," said Kimeli. "It was a really good field and I
think we showed potential. We just need to keep working hard."
"Lydia ran a
strong race," added Flanagan. "Our top four did really well we just
need someone to step up in that fifth spot."
Sarah De Los
Santos finished just five scoring spots behind Kimeli in 22:30.6,
while Meghan Lemke was the third Islander across the line in a time
of 22:38.3. Gillian Gatewood (88, 23:01.6) and Cynthia Santaella
(126, 23:39.1) also finished in scoring positions for the
Islander.
The match was the
final tune-up for the Islanders before hosting the Southland
Conference Championship at West Guth Park on Saturday, Oct.
27th.
