This past weekend, the men and women's cross country teams raced at the NAIA MId States Classic in Winfield, Kansas for their fifth meet of the season. The meet was held on the campus of the Kansas Veterans Home. A nice addition to the meet was the cool weather in the low 60's at race time, of which UST runners have not been able to experience up until this weekend. With the nice temps and fast course, the Celts ran away with many personal bests on both the men and women's side. The men raced the 8km distance while the women competed at the 5k distance. On the men's side the Celt runners placed 10th out of 20 teams, and the women placed 13th out of 24 teams.
The men were led by frontrunner Alex De La Maza, who placed 21st overall and ran a 40 second personal best to finish in 26:05 (5:14/mi.) Following De La Maza was Michael Skinner who placed 38th and ran a 1 min 27 sec pb in a time of 26:38 (5:21/mi.) Joel Garza was the third runner to cross the line for St. Thomas with a 76th place finish in 27:52 (58 sec pb). Coming in fourth for the team was Juan Gonzales in 79th with a 1 min 3 second pb in a time 27:58. Next to score for the Celts was Armando Hernandez who ran a 1 min and 7 sec pb to finish with in 86th with a time of 28:12. The sixth runner for UST was Oscar Padilla who ran a huge personal best by 1 min and 53 seconds (28:40). Next was Alex Guevara, who ran 29:08 and finished with a 61 second personal best. The men averaged a time of 27:21 for the 8km distance (5:30/mile).
The Lady Celts were led by Venice Macawilli who placed 37th and ran 1 min 23 seconds faster than previously this year in a time of 19:40 for the 5k distance. Following Macawili were teammates Fatima Mancia in 74th (20:49) (PB), Alexandria Gonzales in 77th (20:58) , Miranda De La Rosa 102nd (21:46) Maricela Hernandez 114th (22:20). Avg time for the girls was 21:07.
It was great to see the team come away with a bunch of pr's today. We knew we were going to run fast because of the drop in temperature, however, we really haven't tapered for a meet so far this year. If the weather is nice at conference, we should be running our fastest times and feeling our best" says Coach Dohner.
Next, the UST men and women's cross country team head to San Antonio for the Conference Meet hosted by Our Lady of the Lake on November 2nd.
