Aug. 27, 2008
For Immediate Release: Aug. 27, 2008
Sports News Office
Aggie Cross Country Set to Kick Off Season Friday
COLLEGE STATION--The Texas A&M men's and women's cross country teams will open their 2008 season at the Hawkeye Invitational in Iowa City, Iowa, on Friday evening.
The Aggies will take on host Iowa and Wichita State in a three-way invitational meet. The women's 3,000-meter race will start at 6 p.m. while the men's 5,000-meter race will commence at 6:30 p.m.
The Aggie men are coming off a year in which they placed fifth at the Big 12 Championships and third at the NCAA South Regional, their best finishes during the Pat Henry era.
Even better news for the men's team is that not only do all the scorers at both championship meets return this season, but the Aggies pulled an enormous coup in luring three-time NCAA distance champion Shadrack Songok, formerly of Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, to graduate school in Aggieland to finish out his eligibility in 2008-09. Songok will likely debut at the Texas A&M Invitational on Sept. 13.
"As far as the men go this weekend, this will be a nice opportunity to have some younger guys get the uniform on and compete," A&M distance coach Dan Waters said. "Later in the year we'll be suiting up more of our veterans and mix them in with the freshmen that compete well this weekend. As we get closer to the big meets, a test like this will help us as we keep making progress toward the most competitive portion of the season."
The A&M women's team has sent a freshman runner to the NCAA Championships each of the past three seasons, giving them one of the deeper, most experienced groups in several years. The women finished fourth at the 2007 NCAA South Central Regional and eighth at the Big 12 Championships while fighting off an array of injuries.
Sophomore Christina Munoz (El Paso) was the Aggies' NCAA qualifier last season as a freshman, finishing 183rd in the field of the top 253 runners in the nation.
"We have two girls (Sarah Balfour and Munoz) right now with NCAA experience who can lead the team," Waters said. "We have a lot of sophomores who got experience as freshmen last year. We want to see them step up their game as far as what we are asking them to do and trying to really compete at this level."
--aTm--