The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
Big 12 Championship
Four earn All-Big 12 Men's Cross Country honors in third-place team finish at conference meet
10.26.2007 | XC: Men_Old, Track & Field / Cross Country
LUBBOCK, Texas -- The No. 14 Texas Cross Country team placed four on the All-Big 12 team as the Longhorns finished in third place with 58 points at the league championships.
Texas scored 58 points behind five top-22 finishers at Rawls Golf Course in Lubbock, Texas on Friday (Oct. 26) morning. Three Longhorns -- senior Erik Stanley and juniors Kyle Miller and Leo Manzano -- scored in the top nine. UT joined Colorado and Oklahoma State as one of three teams to place three runners in the top 10 and score under 60 points (the remaining nine teams scored over 100 points).
Stanley crossed the finish line first for the Longhorns and sixth overall. He finished the 8K course in 24:53.05 for his second career All-Big 12 Cross Country performance.
Miller, the Horns' top runner in three meets this year, ended his run at 24:55.20, one spot behind Stanley in seventh place, and garnered his second all-conference honor. Miller cut his prior career-best placing of 14th in 2005 in half with today's performance.
Two-time track and field NCAA champion Manzano was third for UT and ninth overall in 25:04.00. Manzano, who started cross training late because of his appearance at the 2007 IAAF World Championships in Osaka, Japan in August, made the all-league cross team for the first time in three years of cross country and finished in the top 10 for the first time in his fall distance running career.
Graduate student Owen Washburn scored for the first time as a member of UT's cross country team with his 14th-place showing. The sixth-year student who transferred from Brown prior to the 2006 season completed the 8K course in 25:10.05 and contributed towards the team score for the first time in his two seasons on the Forty Acres.
Senior track All-American Jake Morse was the fifth scorer for Texas. He ran 25:30.75 for 22nd place to round out the Longhorns' efforts. Morse equaled his career-best placing from 2006.
Other Longhorns runners included freshman Jay Heller, who ran 26:19.40 for 45th place, senior Darren Brown, who clocked 26:33.50 for 55th, redshirt freshman Habben Berhane, who finished in 26:37.45 ahead of true freshman Rob Wetzel, who ran 27:24.30.
Colorado won its' 12th Big 12 Cross Country Championship totaling 34 points. Oklahoma State finished second with 48 points ahead of No. 3 Texas (58), No. 4 Iowa State (139) and No. 5 Texas A&M (166).
It marks the seventh consecutive year the Longhorns have had at least one runner in the top eight. It also stands as the fourth consecutive top three finish as UT entered today's race with a string of three second-place team showings.
Texas travels to Fayetteville, Ark., for the 2007 NCAA South Central Region Championships. The race begins at 10 a.m. (CDT) on Saturday, Nov. 10 at UA Cross Country Course.
TEXAS QUOTES
ASSOCIATE HEAD COACH Jason Vigilante
On the team's goals heading into the meet and its performance: We came out to try to challenge Colorado. We knew they would be tough over the last mile. With a mile to go, we were doing pretty well. Our goal was to push ourselves to the edge. Each of our team members can look each other in the eye and say they gave their best effort out there. We are going to learn from it. We could have been more conservative but the plan was to get after it and run as hard as we could. We did everything we could. I'm very proud of our team and the effort and they put forth.
On the remaining portion of the schedule: We have two weeks until regionals and three weeks to nationals so we have plenty of training to do between now and then. I feel pretty good about the way we're going.
On the Rawls Golf Course: The course was deceptively challenging. From first look it was not very difficult. When you see the times and caliber of athletes, you see that it was a tough course.
