The Sam Houston State University cross country teams performed well at the Texas A&M meet on Oct. 7. The men’s team finished second overall and the women’s team finished third overall.
For the women, both SHSU junior Olivia Olguin and senior Ana Moreno placed in the top 10, as juniors Chris Speaks and Evan Arambula placed the top five for the men.
The cross country teams had a strong presence in College Station, being in the top three spots in the individuals and team event. Arambula, the captain of the men’s team, finished in fifth place with a time of 25:25. He felt that the SHSU cross country teams did well overall.
“I think that overall the team did very well,” Arambula said. “Of course there’s some ups and downs in everyone’s individual performances, but overall men and women did what was expected and then some.”
Olguin, of the women’s team, finished in 10 place with a time of 18:42. Moreno placed fifth with a time of 18:27, just 12 seconds off from a third place finish.
For the men, Speaks finished in third place with a time of 25:09. Speaks feels strong about his performance and he appreciates the help he got from his team captain along the way.
“I feel like I did great,” Speaks said. “I had my team captain to help me, he was pushing me throughout the 5K with the goal to finish”
Moreno is also satisfied with her finish.
“I feel pretty good. It was a good race overall,” Moreno said. “There are some things that didn’t go too good, but other than that I felt strong throughout the race.”
Just like for any other meet, the team prepared for the Texas A&M meet vigorously.
“[I did] the same thing we do every day,” Olguin said.” Wake up before the sun comes up, we usually do a lot of endurance training like tempos, mileage and it makes the distance of the race that we are doing seem easy to us.”
The next cross country meet is a big one, the Southland Conference Championship. The meet will take place on Oct. 28 in Nacogdoches, Texas. With almost a full three weeks to prepare for the SLC Championship, the Bearkats will have time to prepare mentally and physically.
“[Having that much time off] it mentally prepares you,” Speaks said. “We get three weeks until the conference race so we can focus on our eating and our recovery, so when it comes to race day we will be ready. It makes us better in my opinion”
