Hello Islander Fans!
It's a great time to be an Islander right now. Let me first say, if you haven't checked out the new Dr. Jack Dugan Family Soccer & Track Stadium please do so! We have a new women's soccer team and they are looking strong. Before I go on let me introduce myself, I am Jason Garcia and I am senior here at Texas A&M – Corpus Christi, and I have been enjoying my time here at the Island University. Most of the team arrived last Saturday for the first day of practice and we have a great group this year. We have lost some of our runners from last year like Patrick Kimeli, Abel Koskey, Adrian Marquez and Daniel Barlow, as they have graduated and now venture out to the real world, but we have fresh new faces and talent from different areas of Texas. Edgar Martinez from Fort Worth, Cesar Gonzalez from Lytle, Daniel Guerrero who is a native of Corpus Christi that will add some depth to our team and make a great impact to our squad. We our bringing back some veterans like Philipp Baar, Justin Adame, Christoph Hintz, Paul "Buster" Hansel, Brandon Lacy, Jacob Abrego and myself.
Even though we just arrived we have been putting in the work and have successfully had our first race in Edinburg against UTPA and UT-Brownsville to kick off our season. It was a relay race where each runner runs two miles two times. Taking first place was the team of Cesar and Philipp and coming in third and fourth were the teams of Jacob and Buster and following them was the team of Christoph and Brandon and rounding out the Islanders was the team of Edgar and Daniel in fifth place, respectively. My partner Justin got hurt during the race, so we were unable to complete the race, but we got in a solid workout anyway. All the freshmen looked good in the race, but they still have work to do.
Our next cross country meet is in two weeks at Rice University and you bet we will be working hard to finish in a podium position. We had a lot of fun here at the UTPA Relay, but as the season continues we will become more of a unit and a stronger team. Because as Islanders we train hard, to win easy.
"You wouldn't believe it if we told you, but we run like the wind blows".
-Jason
