Aggies sweep team titles at Baylor

Saturday, September 17

Waco, Texas

8:00 AM

Texas A&M

Baylor Invitational

Sep 17, 2011 | Cross Country

By: Texas A&M Athletics

WACO - A pair of team victories highlighted Saturday morning racing at the Baylor Invitational for Texas A&M as the Aggies won the women's title over a field of four teams with a score of 18 points and then turned in a perfect score of 15 to claim the men's title in a field of five teams.

Katherine Devlin led the A&M women on the 4,000-meter course as she clocked a time of 13 minutes, 58.6 seconds. She cruised to a 16-second win in leading a 1-2-3-5-7-8-10 finish among the first seven Aggie runners.

James Hodges won the men's race, which covered 6,000 meters on the Baylor intramural fields, in a time of 18:48.8. Hodges enjoyed a six-second edge over the field as he led an A&M sweep of the top 11 places.

"It was great to get some of the athletes out here who haven't raced yet this season," said Texas A&M assistant coach Wendel McRaven. "The women raced really well and Katherine Devlin picked up where she left off from the track season.

"On the men's side I told the team it might be like a time trail effort today given the other teams competing here. So, I really wanted them to work on trying to pack it up together as much as possible."

Scoring 18 points in the women's race placed the Aggies ahead of North Texas (68), Texas-Arlington (74) and Baylor (79). With the score of 15 points, the A&M men finished ahead of Baylor (51), Texas-Arlington (65), North Texas (111) and Arlington Baptist College (147).

"It seems like it's been a long time since I raced," said Devlin. "So, I was excited to open up this weekend and get ready for the bigger races coming up. We had a plan to run together and pick people off and it worked well today. It was nice to have a group of teammates in the lead pack and we were able to set the pace."

Following Devlin across the finish line in the women's race were Tara Upshaw (2^nd, 14:15.4), Itzel Cetina (3^rd, 14:22.6), Hillary Montgomery (5^th, 14:25.7), and Shawn Dalglish (7^th, 14:35.8) as they tallied the Aggies scoring five.

"It was nice to see Tara Upshaw race really well after missing so much of the track season last spring," McRaven said. "Itzel Cetina also did a nice job and she is going to be one of the keys for us throughout the season."

Hodges would have likely finished second to teammate Henry Lelei, who pulled away from the field early in the race and built a sizeable lead. However, Lelei missed the last loop of the race and crossed the finish area too early.

"It was a little disappointing that Henry made the wrong turn and didn't get to finish the race, since he would have won it pretty significantly," noted McRaven. "Still, I was able to get some feedback on the portion of the race I did get to see him compete. He's going to be good for us and he's at a pretty high level right now."

The Aggie men claimed 14 places among the first 15 finishers. Stephen Curry placed second in 18:54.8 with Isaac Spencer third in 18:57.1. C.J. Brown, who won the Baylor Open a couple of weeks ago, finished fourth in 19:02.2 while MacLean O'Donnell was the fifth runner for A&M in 19:09.5.

"I was pleased to see the effort we had from Hodges, Curry and C.J. up front," said McRaven. "Isaac Spencer is a tough kid and it was good to see a freshman step up to the level he ran today."

Nathan Parker led the next wave of Aggies in sixth place (19:13.5) and was followed by Dylan Williams (7^th, 19:14.7), Will Barry (8^th, 19:15.8), Jake Roberts (9^th, 19:18.8), and Travis Barclay (10^th, 19:20.2).

Grace Fletcher led the next crew of A&M women in eighth place (14:39.6), followed by Colbea Harris (10^th, 14:46.5), Gabby Salazar (11^th, 14:46.9), Sophie Blake (12^th, 14:52.0), and Kate Mohr (15^th, 15:12.0).

Other Aggie men in the competition included Colin Slattery (11^th, 19:24.7), Jimmy Welin (13^th, 19:31.5), Bobby Zeller (14^th, 19:34.1), Ryan Miller (15^th, 19:44.3), Neil Longenbaugh (19^th, 19:53.1) and Jordan Chappell (23^rd, 20:04.6).

Also competing for the Aggie women were Johanna Galloway (19^th, 15:26.4), Kelsey Hermes (21^st, 15:32.2), Margo Lyons (26^th, 15:44.4), and Brenna Farren (28^th, 15:47.7).