COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Freshman
Elizabeth Khatevi of the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi cross country team etched her name into program history after running the fastest women's 6k time at Texas A&M's Arturo Barrios Invite Friday as the men and women raced their final regular season meet.
The women ran out to a 13
th-place finish out of 41 squads with 422 points in the women's 6k. The men also finished in the top half, placing 19
th out of 38 with 515 points in the men's 8k. Among the seven Southland Conference squads in attendance, the women came in only behind Lamar while the men checked in just behind UIW and SFA.
"I am excited for the opportunity we will have in two weeks to compete for two championships," said head coach
Bryan Jackson. "As we wrap up our regular season, that's the message to both teams, we are going to take what we have learned about ourselves and racing on the grass and take our best shot."
Khatevi crossed at 19:12.3 in the women's 6k to finish fifth overall out of 394, simultaneously breaking the program record for the 6k race by over a minute after Allyson Girard ran the previous best time of a 20:41.5 in 2018. Khatevi has really stepped out in her debut season after winning the individual title at Notre Dame in her first ever college race.
Freshman
Alicia Finnis was the second Islander to finish with a 20:16.4 time, good for a 39
th individual standing. Freshman
Embla Hreimsdottir, sophomore
Faith Ramos, and senior
Kate Brockman were the next three Islanders to round out the team's top-five times.
Freshman
Dominic Kiptum was once again the top finisher for the men, finishing 15
th overall with the 23:06.4 time. He has led the Islanders in all three races he's competed in this year.
The men's top five all ran sub-25-minute 8ks with freshman
Diego Canto running the second fastest with a 24:03.5 clocked time. The next three to count for the team's score were senior
Emil Hajjaj, freshman
Dillon Smith, and junior
Ewan Wheelwright who all finished within five seconds of each other.
"The women have grown a lot throughout the season. We are young but have been consistent in how we compete. Our best team races are still in front of us, and the women are excited to see what this phase of the season has in store. The men have been consistent this year in a few phases of the race but I'm confident they will put a complete team race together during the championship stretch of the season," said Jackson.
The Islanders will now look ahead to the Southland Conference Championship on Nov. 1 in New Orleans, Louisiana, hosted by New Orleans.
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