Texas A&M
NCAA South Central Region
Henry Lelei wins South Central, A&M earns NCAA bid
Nov 12, 2011 | Cross Country
WACO - Led by the individual winner with Aggie junior Henry Lelei (La-lay), the Texas A&M men earned an automatic qualifying position for the NCAA Championships in cross country by placing second at the South Central region race.
"It's really awesome," stated A&M assistant coach Wendel McRaven. "This was a picture perfect race. They did what they needed to do.
"We felt like we didn't need to finish in the top two to get into the NCAA meet, but we were capable of getting top two. So, I think our crew ran relaxed. They competed really well over the second half of the race when it really mattered."
Lelei covered the 10,000-meter course at the Cottonwood Creek golf club in 30 minutes, 9.4 seconds to win the race by nearly nine seconds over Arkansas' Eric Fernandez (30:18.0), the SEC individual champion.
"It's very incredible for us, as a team, to automatically qualify for nationals," said Lelei. "I woke up this morning and told the guys lets go get it. Why do others say we will be number three, we can finish in the top two.
"The Arkansas runner stuck with me for almost 6k. I knew I had to test him and see if he would stay with me longer. I had a section where I could run fast, get comfortable on my own and pull away from him."
McRaven added: "I was really pleased with Henry's race. In winning the South Central race I don't think he was too far out of his comfort zone to do that. That's exciting to know."
Texas, ranked No. 11 nationally, won the men's team title with 40 points while Texas A&M, ranked No. 24 in the nation, tallied 56 points for second place. No. 15 Arkansas, the SEC team champion, placed third with 65 points and is in jeopardy of not making the NCAA Championship field as an at-large selection.
"It's exciting for us to be going into the SEC next season and to defeat the SEC champion at the region meet this year," noted McRaven. "But the key factor this weekend was advancing to the national meet. This was a good step for us."
Aggie head coach Pat Henry said: "Across the board, with both men and women, they came here ready to compete and get after it. The men's effort was a huge one to auto qualify for the national championships. Arkansas is the SEC champion, and when we talk about going to the SEC it's a good thing. We can compete right up in there."
The Aggies and Longhorns will be two of 18 teams who automatically qualify for the NCAA Championships from the nine regions contested on Saturday. Another 13 at-large selections will be added to make a field of 31 teams at the national meet in Terre Haute, Indiana on November 21.
In the women's team race it was No. 17 Arkansas winning with 49 points over No. 14 Texas, who had 69. The Aggie women, ranked sixth in the South Central region, claimed third place with 90 points over SMU (128) and Rice (129).
Natosha Rogers placed fifth over the women's 6,000-meter race as she clocked 20:41.1 and earned an automatic qualification as an individual to the NCAA Championships.
"I thought we were ranked a little low for the region, so it was good to see our women's team come out and continue to improve," said McRaven. "Their performance today, finishing close behind a very talented Texas team, shows how much we have improved over the course of the season.
"I'm really proud of the whole team effort on the women's side. For Natosha to finish fifth individually and claim a spot for the national meet is awesome."
Joining Rogers as individual women's qualifier to the national meet are South Central champion Silje Fjortoft of SMU (1st, 19:59.1), Becky Wade of Rice (2nd, 20:25.6) and Agnes Kemboi of TCU (6th, 20:43.7).
"The team placing third was shocking," Rogers noted. "We really stepped up our performance. That was so exciting. Before the race I knew I wanted to finish in the top five. I just had to make sure that it happened.
"Seeing the guys finish second before we started our race was motivating, because we wanted to be there with them at nationals. Also getting to race with my sister Alexa (of Vanderbilt) again is a special treat. In high school we would run every race side by side. I wanted to race with her again."
Texas A&M men had six individuals earn all-region status by placing among the top 24 finishers. Following Lelei for the Aggies was MacLean O'Donnell in 10th place, who ran 30:57.5, and James Hodges in 11th, as he ran 31:00.9.
"What helped us out a lot was feeling comfortable coming into the race knowing we had enough points to qualify as an at-large team," O'Donnell said. "So, we were relaxed and ran a really great race. I think that's what helped us finish second.
"We race really well as a team and we knew we were a lot closer to Texas than what the rankings showed. It's an awesome feeling getting the automatic bid and knowing for sure. We don't have to sit around and wait for results from other regions, or wait to see who had at-large points. Getting the automatic was like icing on the cake."
Kevin Burnett ran 31:08.5 to place 15th while Stephen Curry (31:36.1) and Isaac Spencer (31:39.6) finished 23rd and 24th. C.J. Brown placed 28th in 31:47.3 while Will Barry was an alternate for the team this weekend.
"It's so nice since we feel like we have been underestimated the whole season," said Burnett. "In the national polls teams we beat were moving up ahead of us. The fact that we came out and were able to show others what we are capable of allowed us to prove to everyone that we are better than Arkansas and just behind Texas."
The Aggie women had four runners earn all-region. Katherine Devlin followed Rogers with a 12th place effort in a time of 21:10.9. Hillary Montgomery finished in 20th place with a 21:36.1 and Tara Upshaw finished 25th in 21:47.6. Rounding out the A&M team score was Haley Parsons in 28th with a 21:52.8.
Rounding out the women's crew was Itzel Cetina, who placed 46th (22:28.4), and Shawn Dalglish, who finished 48th (22:32.4).
NCAA SOUTH CENTAL REGION
Cottonwood Creek Golf Course
MEN
Teams: 1. Texas, 40; 2. Texas A&M, 56; 3. Arkansas, 65; 4. Lamar, 93; 5. UTSA, 196; 6. Rice, 202; 7. Houston, 214; 8. SFA, 253; 9. tie, Arkansas-Little Rock & Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, 255; 11. Texas-Pan American, 298; 12. Baylor, 339; 13. LSU, 353; 14. McNeese State, 365; 15. Houston Baptist, 413; 16. North Texas, 443; 17. Tulane, 483.
WOMEN
Teams: 1. Arkansas, 49; 2. Texas, 69; 3. Texas A&M, 90; 4. SMU, 128; 5. Rice 129; 6. Baylor, 182; 7. Lamar, 272; 8. UTSA, 275; 9. SFA, 298; 10. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, 302; 11. TCU, 306; 12. North Texas, 356; 13. Arkansas State, 365; 14. Texas State, 409; 15. Arkansas-Little Rock, 427; 16. Texas-Pan American, 434; 17. Houston, 460; 18. Tulane, 469; 19. LSU, 505; 20. Houston Baptist, 527; 21. Texas-Arlington, 537; 22. McNeese State, 545; 23. Nicholls State, 554.
Players Mentioned
