Texas A&M
NCAA Championships
Aggies place 18th at NCAA, Henry Lelei places 9th
Nov 21, 2011 | Cross Country
TERRE HAUTE, Indiana - Henry Lelei placed ninth in the NCAA Cross Country Championship race to earn All-America honors and lead the Texas A&M men's team to an 18th-place finish.
Ranked No. 22 nationally entering the meet, the Aggies produced one of its better efforts in the eight times A&M has qualified a team to the NCAA Championship race.
"Henry ran a great race and put himself in a good position," said Texas A&M assistant coach Wendel McRaven. "He stayed patient and was in a really good position throughout the race. Then he had to be tough over the last 2k, and he was able to hold onto a top 10 position."
Lelei, who ran with the leaders early on in the race, covered the 10,000-meter course in 29:29.1 and bettered the two Oklahoma State runners, Colby Lowe (10th, 29:31.4) and German Fernandez (11th, 29:32.9), who finished 1-2 at the Big 12 Championships.
"Finishing top 10 was very good," noted Henry. "I missed some training time this week, so to not run for four days it's amazing to me that I still did that well. If I had my normal training this week I think I would have been in the top three. My plan wasn't to take the lead at any point, but to stay with the lead pack all the time.
"All season when we race as a team we've been improving each time, so placing 18th was good for us this season. Next season we should start from 18 and work our way down to finish among the top 10 teams."
Arizona's Lawi Lalang won the men's title in 28:44.1 while Stanford's Chris Derrick placed second in 28:57.5 with Iona's Leonard Korri third in 29:02.5.
In the team chase it was Wisconsin scoring 97 points to upset two-time defending national champion Oklahoma State (139) with Colorado (144) in third. BYU (203) and Stanford (207) rounded out the top five men's teams.
In the women's race Texas A&M was represented by Natosha Rogers, who finished 57th in a field of 254 runners, running a time of 20:41.7 on the 6,000-meter course. Rogers missed being in the top 40 for All-American honors by just 11 seconds.
"Rogers showed a ton of improvement this season," said McRaven. "She places 57th in the country and knocking on the door to earn All-American honors. Her sister, Alexa, was an All-American in placing 39th and Natosha was competing with her most of the race. She is just scratching the surface on how good she can be."
Nine women were separated by just 10 seconds on the run to the finish line. Villanova's Sheila Reid repeated her individual victory with a time of 19:41.2 over Oregon's Jordan Hasay (19:41.8) while Dartmouth's Abbey D'Agostino (19:42.9) finished third.
Rogers was the fourth finisher from the South Central region, following SMU's Silje Fjortoft (19:58.1) in 13th, Becky Wade of Rice (20:10.8) in 23rd, and Arkansas' Kristen Gillespie (20:21.9) in 31st.
"Last year during the start I went to the middle and got funneled out the back," said Rogers, who placed 164th a year ago in a time of 21:53.1. "This time my starting box was the last one on the outside and I stayed to the outside and was able to get closer to the leading group.
"The pace went out so fast and it never settled down. I just tried to hang on to every person that went past me. That pulled me along for most of the race. I finished over a 100 places better this time, so that was awesome. I was hoping to finish in the top 40 for All-America honors, but next year it's going to happen for sure."
Georgetown claimed the women's team title, knocking off two-time defending national champion Villanova, by scoring 162 points. Washington finished runner-up with 170 points while Villanova placed third with 181.
The Aggie men topped 58 percent of the field, which betters their previous best of 39 percent with a tie for 19th in 2003. The highest placing for an A&M team occurred 50 years ago with a 12th place finish in 1961, but there were only 17 teams competing that season.
"We did what we've done most of the season, moving really well to the middle of the race," noted McRaven. "They did a good job of finding each other in a pretty big field of runners. They competed tough. There were 31 really good teams on the line and to finish 18th means you beat some really good teams with great cross country traditions."
The A&M men's squad included (team score place in parenthesis): 113. MacLean O'Donnell (87), 30:54; 151. Kevin Burnett (118), 31:12; 157. James Hodges (123), 31:18; 172. C.J. Brown (137), 31:26; 185. Stephen Curry (150), 31:35; and 200. Isaac Spencer (163), 31:48. Will Barry served as the Aggie alternate for this race.
In the men's field 255 runners finished the race.
"We came in ranked 22nd and placed 18th, which is great for us," state O'Donnell. "Even though our pack of three with our 2-3-4 runners got spread out this time, we still had a good finish today."
With 471 points, the Aggies were just three points behind Georgetown, who placed 17th. Other Big 12 teams included Oklahoma (213) in sixth and Texas (341) in 11th place.
Finishing behind Texas A&M were some notable cross country teams in Princeton (18th, 474), Michigan (20th, 511), Washington State (21st, 512), Providence (22nd, 530), Ohio State (23rd, 538), Notre Dame (24th, 575), Tulsa (25th, 580), Eastern Kentucky (26th, 589) and Columbia (27th, 591).
Players Mentioned
