Kats primed for Friday's Longhorn Invitational
10/1/2015 12:55:00 PM | Cross Country, Cross Country
One weekend removed from a pair of team championships and individual titles at the Islander Splash, the Sam Houston State men's and women's cross country teams visit the University of Texas and the Longhorn Invitational on Friday.
The squads will compete at the grassy, rolling hills of Balcones-Spicewood Cross Country Course with the women racing the 6K at 6 p.m. followed by the men's 8K at 6:30 p.m.
“As we get into October, this is where we begin getting ready for our championship races,” head coach Jesse Parker said. “This is the first meet we go to and face some high-level competition. We will see quite a few Division I programs. We'll run the best kids we got, run as fast as we can and see what happens after that.”
Sam Houston is coming off two strong weekends, including a 36-point effort in a win for the men and 37-point win for the women, besting A&M-Corpus Christi, UTSA, Texas Southern, UT Rio Grande Valley and Prairie View A&M in Corpus Christi.
“We ran well at our home meet but I think going down to Corpus showed the athletes that the goals we set are not just imaginary, crazy thoughts,” Parker said. “They reinforced our goals and that we're going to have a good season. It gave the athletes a lot of confidence with what we're doing from a training standpoint. We expect to run well every time we go out and race.”
As a reward, the team spent Saturday at the beach, taking in quality team time and enjoying what Parker calls one of the important factors of competing at the collegiate level.
“Winning the races Friday night definitely made Saturday's morning run and beach time a lot more enjoyable,” Parker said. “We all got into this because it's fun whether we're competing or coaching. There is something we enjoy about it. It reinforces that we're going to work hard and perform well but have fun while we're doing it.”
With quality competitors like Texas and North Texas, just to name a few, among foes in Austin, the team backed off its intensive trainings in hopes of getting their legs back underneath for a strong showing at the event.
“This has been a recovery week for us,” Parker said. “It worked out this way in training but also in preparation of the UT meet because we want to put forth a good effort. We had a hard workout Tuesday morning, but other than that, it has been mostly maintenance. We backed off on the mileage for them to feel fresh.”
According to Parker, on the men's side, the sophomore class of Colton Stoker, Grant Buley, Jeffrey Moore and Jake Alexander and Joe Sosa have played a key role in providing a core group around juniors Evan Arambula and Chris Speaks in the success.
“A lot of them have been impressing me,” Parker said. “As someone who sees them every day in training, you see things coming to fruition, but it's nice to see it on the actual race. The men's sophomore group has grown up in the past six to eight months. The maturity of those guys have been the backbone of it.”
Meanwhile, the women, who are currently without veteran Ana Moreno, have seen several athletes step up to claim the team's top spot last weekend.
“To see freshman Hannah Tarrant really step up last week at Corpus after having a poor race here at our home meet was big,” Parker said. “Briana McCall and Lizzy Duenes, with how they ran, was real the difference maker in my mind and I expect to the see same thing at Texas.”
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