Oct. 16, 2008
Fayetteville, Arkansas - Texas A&M cross country, with the men's team ranked No. 20 in the nation for the second consecutive week, returns to action this weekend at the Chili Pepper Festival, held Saturday morning at Agri Park.
Race time is 9:45 a.m. for the men's 10,000-meter race and 10:30 a.m. for the women's 6,000 distance. Conditions for the weekend have a forecast of 50 degrees at race time.
Texas A&M senior Shadrack Songok returns to the Arkansas course as the defending champion of the Chili Pepper Festival. Songok covered the 10K course in 29:22.1 last year, winning by over 12 seconds. He returned a few weeks later and claimed the South Central region title in 20:17, seven seconds ahead of the field.
Joining Songok at this year's Festival are A&M teammates Mitch Bible, Chad Brown, Josh Litos, Kevin McNab, Graham Northcutt, Joe Sauvageau, and Logan Sherman. After winning their home Invitational in September, the Aggies finished third in the team scoring at Notre Dame two weeks ago with Songok second overall.
Christina Munoz, who qualified for the NCAA Championships last year on the Agri Park course during the region meet, has led the Aggie women so far this season. She finished seventh at the Texas A&M Invitational and placed 19th at Notre Dame.
Last season Munoz ran 21:44.4 for 20th place in the Chili Pepper Festival and then recorded a time of 20:54 to finish fifth at the South Central region meet and earned a berth into the NCAA meet.
Also traveling to Arkansas on the women's side are Leigh Berger, Alie Cornell, Emilie Fischer, Elizabeth Slaughter, Merideth Snow, Evelyn Wing and Amber Weems.
Another group of the A&M men's squad will also compete in Huntsville at the Sam Houston Invitational, held Saturday at Kate Barr-Ross Memorial Park. The race starts at 8:30 a.m.
Competing for the Aggies are Mitch Blakeley, Wes Caceras, Adam Cain, J.B. Lagos, Dusty Langwell, and Brian Lind.
The Chili Pepper Festival serves as the final regular season contest for the Aggies with the Big 12 Conference meet being held in a couple of weeks. Texas A&M is the highest ranked Division I team entered in the men's field that includes host Arkansas, who are ranked No. 27, Arkansas State, Baylor, Lamar, Louisiana-Lafayette, Louisiana Tech, Loyola Marymount, LSU, Memphis, Oklahoma, Oral Roberts, TCU, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Texas-Arlington, Texas Tech and Virginia Tech.
Challenges for the Aggies will also come from Abilene Christian and Harding, who are currently ranked No. 2 and No. 3 in the Division II rankings, along with Rend Lake College, No. 2 in the Junior College rankings.
Within the South Central region the Chili Pepper Festival will feature eight of the 15 ranked teams. The squads head into the weekend ranked in the following order on the region level: 2. Texas A&M, 3. Arkansas, 4. Lamar, 5. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, 7. Louisiana Tech; 9. LSU; 12. Texas-Arlington, and 13. Baylor.
Last season the Aggie men placed fifth in the meet behind Arkansas, Abilene Christian, Virginia Tech and Rend Lake. The A&M women finished in seventh place.
The Aggie women will face a field that includes No. 10 Arkansas, No. 23 SMU and No. 29 Texas Tech on the Division I level. Other squads entered include: Abilene Christian, Alabama, Lamar, LSU, Louisiana-Lafayette, Memphis, Oklahoma, Oral Roberts, Rend Lake, TCU, Texas, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, Texas-Arlington, Tulane and Virginia Tech.
In the South Central region Texas A&M women are No. 6 behind Arkansas, Baylor, SMU, Rice, and Texas. Other squads ranked in the region include 7. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, 10. TCU, 11. Tulane, and 13. Texas-Arlington.