Texas A&M
Notre Dame/Joe Piane Invitational
Aggie men finish 14th among elite field in Notre Dame Invitational
Sep 30, 2016 | Cross Country
SOUTH BEND, Indiana – Texas A&M men placed 14th, scoring 332 points, amid an elite field of teams in the Joe Piane Notre Dame Invitational on Friday as they were led by Cameron Villarreal and Elliott Farris, who finished 23rd and 25th among a group of 202 runners.
Villarreal covered the five-mile distance at the Burke Memorial course in a time of 24 minutes, 10.6 seconds as Farris clocked 24:11.0. A fast start aided Farris, who was among the top 12 runners in the first mile.
"It's a good marker to see where we are at, since we're coming off a pretty solid training block," said Villarreal. "Definitely not our best race, but judging by how we finished together as a team it's a good stepping stone. Now we'll have another solid two weeks of training going into Wisconsin. Then we have another measuring stick of where we're at as a team. We're building on each race."
Farris added: "It was pretty tight at the start, so we wanted to get out fast and some of us did a pretty good job with that. As a group were still getting better.
"When Cameron caught up with me after the start, we worked pretty well together. It's really nice having a teammate right there. Every time he surged a little bit, I'd feed off of that. Then I would surge and he would feed off that. It was a great duo for a majority of the race."
Christian Farris was the third Texas A&M finisher, posting a time of 24:40.8 to place 70th, with Austin Wells and Jacob Perry rounding out the Aggie scoring five. Wells placed 106th in 24:57.9 as Perry finished 117th in 25:06.0.
"Cameron Villarreal is working his way back after being hurt during the outdoor season last spring," said Texas A&M assistant coach Wendel McRaven. "He's getting better every time he races. Elliott Farris has made a tremendous amount of progress. What we need to do a little better is have our number 3-4-5 runners, in a big meet like this, to run just like they do in a smaller, well-contained field."
The Aggies finished between two schools who were tied for 30th in the national rankings this week. Texas placed 13th with 323 points while Florida State was 15th with 400 points.
"It was pretty solid performance for the men," noted McRaven. "We probably ran as well, if not better, than we did last year at the same meet. The field was so deep this year. We beat some pretty good teams and are right there with some other good teams that finish right ahead of us.
"We're right on the cusp of being a national level team that's in the mix among the top 25 teams in the country right now. We just need to make that next step."
No. 20 Mississippi, led by individual winner Sean Tobin (23:31.9), bettered defending men's winner UTEP, who entered the meet ranked 18th, by a margin of 16 points, 83-99.
No. 9 Eastern Kentucky (168) finished third as Providence (182) and Illinois (183), who were each receiving votes in the national rankings, rounded out the top five teams. There were eight nationally ranked teams in the men's field and four teams receiving votes.
The sixth Aggie men's finisher was Colin Stoeber, who placed 164th (25:40.0), followed by Jon Bishop in 168th (25:42.5), Eli Canal in 186th (26:10.7) and Julian Castellano in 199th (27:02.2).
Karis Jochen led the women's team as she placed 29th, covering the 5,000-meter distance in 16:53.2. Ashley Driscoll was the second Aggie finisher as she placed 113th in a time of 17:52.7.
Then a pair of Texas A&M runners finished together with Katie Watson in 118th as she ran 17:56.2 and Haley Deakins in 119th with a 17:56.3. Rounding out the Aggies team score was Devin Norton, who clocked 18:06.8 to place 137th.
Completing the squad were Kelsey Persyn, who finished 140th in 18:10.1, and Arin Rice, who placed 141st with a time of 18:11.0. The Aggies totaled 490 points to finish 22nd in team scoring.
"Karis was a little off today," noted McRaven. "When you're in a field like this, when it's this good, if you're a little off and don't get out very well, then you're going to struggle.
"We saw some progress with some of the girls, and in a race like this I think they learned some things. We have a month until the conference meet, so they've got to decide if they're going to do some growing between now and the postseason."
No. 1 Providence claimed the women's team title with 117 points. Teams comprising the top five included No. 5 North Carolina State (149), Eastern Michigan (159), No. 2 New Mexico (166) and Baylor (169). The women's field had six nationally ranked teams with seven more receiving votes.
In the men's open race the Texas A&M tandem of Taylor Clayton and Ryan Teel finished 13th and 15th over a file-mile race. Clayton posted a time of 25:51.0 with Teel clocking 25:58.1. The women's open race over 5,000m had Aggies Lauryn Barrientos and Laura Craig placing 20th and 29th. Barrientos ran 18:22.8 with Craig finishing in 18:31.6.
"It's still early, and we just finished up the month of September," said McRaven. "It's great to come to a little cooler weather like we had today and see some of these kind of teams for the first time this season. It's a good positive step for us in some regards, but it also reveals some areas we need to get better in."
Players Mentioned
