Rice University
C-USA Championships
Back-to-Back! Owls Win 2nd Straight C-USA Title
10/29/2016 12:00:00 AM | Women's Cross Country
Final Stats.html
By: Kenny Bybee (kab10@rice.edu)
CONCORD, N.C. - Five Rice runners finished in the top 15 overall to help deliver the Owls second team title in as many years at Saturday's Conference USA Cross Country Championships hosted by Charlotte.
The Owls won with 48 points, the same exact mark they recorded in 2015. Middle Tennessee (89 points) and UTEP (100 points) finished second and third, respectively.
"I'm so very proud of our young ladies for carrying out our plan today," Rice women's cross country head coach Jim Bevan said. "We've won seven cross country titles at Rice (four in C-USA, two in WAC, 1 SWC) but we've never defended a title before. This team really wanted to defend it. It's obviously been a very good year for us and we're 100 percent healthy now. This is a team Rice fans can be extremely proud of because we've battled some injuries but fought our way back and won a very difficult and much improved C-USA race."
In addition to winning the team title, Bevan was named C-USA Coach of the Year for a second straight season. The honor was Bevan's fourth career C-USA Cross Country Coach of the Year.
The Owls matched last season's performance by placing five runners on C-USA All-Conference teams. Senior Cali Roper closed out her stellar C-USA career by leading the Owls with a fifth place finish of 17:19 in the 5K race in what Bevan called her "best race of the season". Roper became the first runner in Rice history to garner four consecutive C-USA First-Team selections. Following the race Roper was named the C-USA Outstanding Senior of the Meet.
Finishing right behind Roper in sixth place was senior teammate Katie Jensen, who crossed the finish line with a mark of 17:33 to earn C-USA First-Team honors for a second straight year. Jensen set the pace and led the entire group through the first 3000 meters.
Junior Elsa Racasan and sophomore Abigail Cartwright, both of which battled various nicks during the season, finished 10th (17:46) and 12th (17:50) respectively, earning C-USA Second-Team accolades. Freshman Khayla Patel earned Third-Team honors in her C-USA Championship debut by crossing the finish line in 18 minutes, just 41 seconds back of Roper.
To speak of the improvement of the conference, senior Hannah Kay ran a better time at this season's race (18:12) than last year (18:22), but finished 25th overall on Saturday where she was 16th last year.
The Owls will now have a few weeks off before racing again on Nov. 11 at the NCAA South Central Regional Championships in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
-RiceOwls.com-
Players Mentioned
