Women's Cross Country Wins Rice Invitational
9/10/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Cross Country
By: Kenny Bybee (kab10@rice.edu)
Rice Invitational Results
HOUSTON - The Rice Owls women's cross country squad picked up where they left off last year by winning the season-opening Rice Invitational Friday evening at the Intramural Fields.
Rice, 31 points, had five runners place in the top 20, including an individual first place performance from redshirt sophomore Abigail Cartwright. The Dallas native finished the 4163 meter run in a time of 14:17.52, holding off fellow senior teammate Katie Jensen's second place time of 14:20.99.
Last year's C-USA individual champion Cali Roper placed fifth overall (14:33.93) while freshman Khayla Patel finished ninth (7th collegiately; 14:47.01) in her first collegiate race. Senior Hannah Kay rounded out the Owls top five performers by placing 20th overall (16th collegiately) in a time of 15:16.12.
"This was an exciting race and at one juncture we were 1-2-3," Rice's reigning C-USA Coach of the Year Jim Bevan said. "I know we're a lot stronger team up front than we were last year. I'm proud of Abigail winning this race and we had Katie leading for a long period of time as was Cali Roper earlier in the race. I'm very happy with a strong top three. Also, Khayla opened with a great race to inaugurate her Rice career, finishing only 30 seconds behind Abigail. Hannah was within a minute as our fifth runner and ran her best Rice Invite as did Anna Figueroa (6th-15:41.97). Not to mention, we're also hoping to have Elsa Racasan back soon. We needed to get a race under our belt so let's see what we can learn from it and grow as a team in our next race in College Station in two weeks."
A short-handed Rice men's team placed fifth overall out of 14 teams with 127 points in the 6197 meter race. Redshirt sophomore Matt Calem had his best performance as an Owl by placing 17th overall (15th collegiately) with a mark of 19:34.25. Redshirt junior Marco Ruiz placed one spot behind Calem in a time of 19:35.93.
Senior William Roberts also posted a strong season debut, placing 20th collegiately in a time of 19:39.95.
"We got out to a good start and Matt ran great," Rice men's cross country head coach Jon Warren said. "He's dealt with a lot of injuries so I was very proud to see how he performed today. Marco and Will had very solid races. Individually we had some outstanding performances but I know we'll be a better team than we were tonight. It's always nice to get that first race out of the way."
Rice and HBU were competing in a dual meet with the Owls topping the Huskies on both the men's and women's side.
The women's team will be back in action on Sept. 24 at the Texas A&M Invite while the men will next compete at the Rim Rock Classic on Oct. 1 in Lawrence, Kansas.
-RiceOwls.com-
Players Mentioned
