MADISON, Wisc. – Hillary Montgomery ran a stellar race to place 16th among the elite field assembled for the sixth annual Wisconsin adidas Invitational on a cold, windy day on the Thomas Zimmer Championship course.
Grace Fletcher and Karis Jochen also supplied the Aggie women with impressive races to place 28th and 43rd among the field of 265 runners. With temperatures in the mid-50s and facing a gusting wind, Montgomery covered the manicured 6,000-meter course in 20 minutes, 17 seconds as Fletcher clocked 20:28 and Jochen recorded a 20:38.
With three A&M runners finishing among the top 40 in this elite field of runners, they displayed the potential they each have in earning All-American status at the NCAA Championships in November.
“Our top three girls ran fantastic, they really did a nice job,” stated Texas A&M assistant coach Wendel McRaven. “Those three girls all have the potential to be All-American in cross country, which is pretty special.
“I can't be more pleased with how they ran. We're training hard right now and they're going to keep getting better as the year progresses.”
The improvement over last season was significant for the trio, in time and place. A year ago Montgomery placed 62nd (20:47), Jochen finished 119th (21:14) and Fletcher was 148th (21:25).
The Aggie women totaled 576 points to place 25th in the field of 41 teams, which included six top 10 programs and 22 teams ranked among the top 30.
Montgomery, Fletcher and Jochen combined for a score of 81 points compared to a 292 tally from the three runners last year in this meet. Among SEC runners in the race, only the Arkansas duo of Dominique Scott (19:54) and Grace Heymsfield (19:56), in eighth and 10th place, finished ahead of the Aggies first three runners.
“We still need to get better after our first three runners,” noted McRaven. “Numbers 4-5-6-7 each has to put themselves in position to do better. Physically we have the capability of doing that. They have to make that decision that it's important enough to them to make that commitment to close that gap.”
Rounding out the five scoring places for A&M were Johanna Galloway (247th, 23:16) and Katie Pia (248th, 23:16). The sixth and seventh runners for the Aggies were Haley Deakins (251st, 23:22) and Melanie Enriquez (254th, 23:41).
Iowa State's Crystal Nelson won the women's race in 19:35 ahead of Michigan State's Rachele Schulist (19:39) with Arizona State's Shelby Houlihan (19:41) placing third. Michigan State, nationally ranked No.2, claimed the team title with 87 points over an elite field that included No. 5 Arkansas (191), No. 8 Iowa State (212), No. 15 Wisconsin (227) and No. 20 West Virginia (245).
Vanderbilt, nationally ranked No. 27, was the second best SEC squad in the field as they tied for ninth (367) while SMU, from the South Central region, finished 23rd (551).
No. 23 Providence (565), the 2013 NCAA Champions in cross country, placed 24th in the meet, just 11 points ahead of Texas A&M. The Aggies bettered three nationally ranked teams in No. 30 BYU (588), No. 19 William & Mary (590) and No. 28 Notre Dame (684), who placed 26th, 27th and 30th. Also finishing behind A&M were SEC squads Georgia (957) and Florida (976) in 37th and 38th place.
The Aggie men repeated their team performance from last season in placing 33rd with 955 points. In 2013 A&M scored 965 points to finish 33rd.
Isaac Spencer raced among the lead pack for a majority of the race. He was in position to post a top 40 finish, but he tripped and fell near the 5,000-meter mark of the 8,000-meter race.
Spencer placed 156th with a time of 25:01 after clicking off splits of 6:11 (2k) and 12:21 (4k) that left him just a second behind the top 10 finishers. As the lead pack of 20-plus runners crossed the 6k mark in 18:22, Spencer was 30 seconds behind at 18:54.
“That's the nature of cross country with a field this size,” said McRaven of the fall by Spencer. “He was in great position, among the top 40 at 5k and looked like he was ready to roll. I didn't realize he had fallen and the next time I saw him he was 100-plus places worse.”
Ryan Miller was the second Aggie finisher, placing 184th in 25:14, while Austin Wells completed the course in 25:31 to finish in 208th. The fourth and fifth runners for A&M included Cameron Villarreal (217th, 25:39) and Austin Geerts (219th, 25:40). Rounding out the Aggie squad were Elliott Farris (240th, 26:26) and Colin Slattery (253rd, 27:12).
“The men were just off today,” noted McRaven. “We've been training really well and hard. Maybe I didn't back them down enough for this weekend. We looked flat out there today. We're way better than the performance we had. It was more a question of what was wrong.
“We have time to make some adjustments and get them fresh for the conference and regional meets. We also have the talent. This just wasn't an indication of their talent. We should be running better than the performance we had today.”
Syracuse, No. 6 nationally, won the men's team title with 85 points as they placed their five scoring runners among the top 24 finishers. Iona, ranked No. 14, finished as the team runner-up with 154 points followed by No. 9 Wisconsin (176), No. 5 Portland (211), No. 7 Stanford (220), and No. 3 Northern Arizona (225).
Texas A&M also had four runners compete in a pair of open races. Ryan Teel led a trio of Aggies in the men's race, clocking 25:36 for 36th place, with Christian Farris placing 46th (25:50) and Colin Stoeber finishing 68th (26:34). Ashley Chamberlain ran 24:02 to place 106th in the women's field.
RESULTS
Wisconsin adidas Invitational
Women's Team Scores: 1. Michigan State, 87; 2. Arkansas, 191; 3. Iowa State, 212; 4. Wisconsin, 227; 5. West Virginia, 245; 6. New Mexico, 261; 7. Stanford, 284; 8. Florida State, 309; 9. tie, Virginia and Vanderbilt, 367; 11. North Carolina, 382; 12. Syracuse, 403; 13. Washington, 417; 14. Ohio State, 443; 15. Minnesota, 462; 16. Arizona State, 464; 17. Boise State, 480; 18. Toledo, 497; 19. Dartmouth, 511; 20. UCLA, 529; 21. Boston College, 541; 22. Iona, 544; 23. SMU, 551; 24. Providence, 565; 25. Texas A&M, 576; 26. BYU, 588; 27. William & Mary, 590; 28. Columbia, 657; 29. Indiana, 667; 30. Notre Dame, 684; 31. Cornell, 690; 32. Arizona, 710; 33. Weber State, 759; 34. Harvard, 798; 35. Duke, 858; 36. San Francisco, 934; 37. Georgia, 957; 38. Florida, 976.
Men's Team Scores: 1. Syracuse, 85; 2. Iona, 154; 3. Wisconsin, 176; 4. Portland, 211; 5. Stanford, 220; 6. Northern Arizona, 225; 7. UCLA, 236; 8. Washington, 267; 9. tie, Michigan & Florida State, 296; 11. Providence, 327; 12. New Mexico, 338; 13. BYU, 378; 14. Indiana, 394; 15. Michigan State, 399; 16. Arkansas, 416; 17. Oklahoma, 419; 18. North Carolina, 456; 19. Iowa State, 485; 20. Minnesota, 486; 21. Eastern Kentucky, 532; 22. Boise State, 534; 23. Princeton, 590; 24. Dartmouth, 619; 25. Arizona State, 626; 26. Harvard, 663; 27. Columbia, 671; 28. Illinois, 677; 29. Lamar, 687; 30. Notre Dame, 724; 31. Weber State, 755; 32. Arizona, 767; 33. Texas A&M, 955; 34. Georgia, 997; 35. William & Mary, 1026; 36. Florida, 1091.