Cherono takes first at Incarnate Word Invite

The women of WT traveled down to San Antonio to preview the regional course this past weekend. Jeniffer Cherono continued her impressive season with a first place finish over the 6k course in a time of 22.26.4. The team placed 2nd out of 8 teams with a total of 55 points. The Men and Women travel to Stillwater to run in the OSU Jamboree on Oct. 4th. This will be the first big test for both teams and a chance to see how the runners stack up with other conference and regional teams.

Solid Effort by Men's Squad at Texas Tech

The Buffs traveled to Lubbock, TX this past weekend with only 5 to run the 8k course. The 8k course was three loops with a tough uphill finish. Haron Lagat blazed the difficult course in a time of 24:27.57 to a first place finish in front of the 109 runners. Both the men's and women's teams are training extremely hard right now.

44 Harris, Thomas West Texas A&M 28:14.31 35

51 Striley, Andrew West Texas A&M 28:38.90 42

63 Saucedo, Isai West Texas A&M 29:13.82 49

65 Kopansky, Matt West Texas A&M 29:19.13 51

68 Kachel, Jarret West Texas A&M 29:38.50 52

Cherono receives LSC runner of the week honors

Jeniffer Cherono was named female runner of the week for the Lone Star Conference after finishing 3rd at the ACU classic and clocking a time of 18:19.07 over the rolling 5k distance. Cherono is a junior from Iten, Kenya

Men Finish 3rd at ACU Classic

The Men of West Texas A&M had a strong season debut finishing 3rd behind defending national champions Abilene Christian and South Plains. The first place 4 mile time went to ACU runner Cleophus Tanui in 18:49.27.

WT Finishers:

13 Velazquez, Jose West Texas A&M 21:54.56
17 Harris, Thomas West Texas A&M 22:33.18
18 Striley, Andrew West Texas A&M 22:36.53
20 Huerta, Jose West Texas A&M 22:52.42
22 Kachel, Jarret West Texas A&M 23:13.25
23 Kopansky, Matt West Texas A&M 23:13.27
29 Saucedo, Isai West Texas A&M 23:46.54
40 Huerta, Erik West Texas A&M 25:24.25
44 Maldonado, Jesse West Texas A&M 26:13.19
45 Flores, Luis West Texas A&M 26:14.86

Women Win ACU Classic

It was a great start to the 2008 season with the Lady Buffs defeating 7th ranked Abilene Christian on their home course. The final score was WT 40 and ACU 49.

The winning 3 mile time went to Winrose Karunde in 17:46.69

WT Finishers:

3 Cherono, Jeniffer 18:19.07
5 Hartsfield, Kristie 19:44.85
11 Castanon, Belinda 20:26.32
12 Reyna, Allie 20:32.71
14 Rapstine, Becca 20:50.06
17 Shields, Tara 21:10.40

Rolling start

Just wanted to update those of you who are following the Buffs and Lady Buffs through the 2008 cross country season. The athletes have had a solid three weeks of training and some individuals are really starting to emerge as front runners. We had our 2 mile time trial on a dirt road outside of town two weeks ago and the top spots shook down like this:

Women:
Jeniffer Cherono (11:45)
Kristie Hartsfield
Allie Reyna
Belinda Castanon

Men:
Jose Velazquez (10:25)
Jose Huerta
Thomas Harris
Aaron Hibbitts
Jarret Kachel
Isai Saucedo
Andrew Striley

Unfortunately our home meet the Buffalo Stampede was canceled due to extremely wet conditions so we didn't get to assess how everyone is responding to the training thus far. Everyone is relatively healthy with the exception of your everyday aches and pains. We are headed to Abilene Christian this weekend to compete so we can assess where we stand as a team. I will post results on Saturday evening.