Men’s and Women’s Cross Country Recap

Without warning, the whistle blew and the SIUC women’s cross country team, along with the rest of the field, was left standing at the starting line as the runners from the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga began the race without them.

In the midst of a controversial start, the Salukis managed to finish in second place at Saturday’s UTC Front Runner Invitational in Chattanooga, Tenn.

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The head start led UTC to a perfect score of 15, including the top five finishers in the meet. SIUC finished with 46 points, while Vanderbilt University finished in third place with 97 points in the eight-team meet.

The Saluki men’s team finished in ninth place out of 12 teams at the Chili Pepper Invitational in Fayetteville, Ark., Saturday, falling to several of the top-ranked teams in the nation.

The University of Arkansas, the No. 2-ranked team in the nation, won the meet with five runners in the top 10 to give them a score of 32 points. The Salukis finished in ninth place with a score of 235 in the 12-team meet.

Women’s coach Don DeNoon said there was no information given about the start of the race, and only the UTC runners understood the starting instructions.

DeNoon said everyone, besides UTC, thought that when the whistle was blown, it was used to bring the teams to the starting line. But the whistle actually signaled the start of the race.

It was a total mental collapse once Chattanooga got out so far in front, DeNoon said. The kids were boggled down with Chattanooga’s 100-meter head start.

The Salukis were led by sophomore Jenny Monaco, who finished in sixth place with a time of 18 minutes and 35 seconds. Monaco was followed by senior Raina Larsen in eighth place (18:56) and junior Leah Steele in ninth place (19:04).

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Larsen said the unconfirmed start distracted the team during the race.

The start interfered with the psychology of the race because we had to play catch-up and worry about being packed in the middle of the runners, Larsen said.

The men’s cross country team’s top five runners all set personal records in the 10-kilometer run, but were still beaten out by some of the best teams in the nation.

Men’s coach Bill Cornell said the meet was expected to be highly competitive.

We knew we were going down to face the best competition in the nation, Cornell said. We weren’t expected to win, obviously, but with all the (personal records) we set, we can’t be dissatisfied.

Junior Joseph Parks led the Salukis with a 23rd-place finish out of 105 runners in a time of 30:30.

Joseph Parks was followed by junior Jeremy Parks in 36th place (31:12), sophomore Matt McClelland in 49th place (31:39), sophomore Eric Rushing in 61st place (32:28) and sophomore Paul Fitzpatrick in 66th place (32:42).

Jeremy Parks said the finish did not represent how well the team ran.

Ninth place looks terrible in print, Parks said. But we did good with the competition that was there.

The men’s and women’s cross country team are idle until the Nov. 1 Missouri Valley Conference Championship in Springfield, Mo.