Cross Country | 9/18/2015 11:04:00 PM
Men's Results |
Women's ResultsABILENE – The ACU women's cross country team has been building toward a day just like the one they experienced Friday at Sherrod Park.
Running on their home course, the Wildcats upended Texas Tech at the ACU Wildcats Cross Country Invitational. The Wildcats – even with top runner Diana Garcia Munoz being disqualified from the race for taking a wrong turn near the end of the race and running off course – scored 24 points and had three runners in the top five.
ACU was led by individual champion Alexandria Hackett, who covered the 5-kilometer course in 17:27.37, topping Jocelyn Caro of Texas Tech, who was a distant second at 18:18.37. The Red Raiders scored 31 points to finish second.
Hackett breezed to the win, leading a team that had a solid summer, put together a terrific first meet two weeks ago and has now won the team championship in both of its meets this season. The competition will get tougher in the coming weeks as the Wildcats go to Texas A&M next weekend and Arkansas the following weekend, but head coach
Keith Barnier knows this was an important win for his team.
"We're trying to fight for relevancy in the Southland Conference," he said. "You have to beat good teams along the way, and this (Texas Tech) is the best team we've beaten this year. As we go into the next two weeks, we'll have the opportunity to race against even better teams, and hopefully this will give us some confidence going into those meets."
With Munoz's race not counting, the Wildcats had to get help from down the lineup, and they got it from freshman Aubrey Till, who was third in 18:26.97, Michaela Hackett, who was fifth in 18:40.99, and another freshman in Carnley Graham, who was seventh in 19:03.91. Isabella Gutierrez was eighth in 19:22.61 to round out the Wildcats' top five.
On the men's side, Texas Tech had four of the top six finishers, although Hassan Abdi of South Plains College won the individual title, covering the 6-kilometer course in 18:39.82. Evans Tuitoek of Texas Tech was second (18:46.45), followed by teammate Miguel Bautista in third (18:59.53).
ACU's Daniel Block was fourth in 19:22.07 in front of a pair of Texas Tech runners in Joacim Zuniga (19:30.67) and Ebenether Wondaferew (19:32.78).
Ryan Cleary finished seventh for the Wildcats (sixth in Division I team scoring) in 19:38.23, while Sterlen Paul was 11th (10th in DI scoring) in 20:45.11. Texas Tech captured the team championship with 19 points, while ACU scored 41.
