Oct. 28, 2010

Meet Preview

ROCHESTER, Mich. - All roads lead to Carmel, Ind. as the Oakland University men's and women's cross country teams hit the road for the Summit League Championship, Saturday, Oct. 29. The women are scheduled to run a 6K while the men will run a 8K. The races are scheduled to start at 10 and 11 a.m., respectively.

"This weekend is what all of our hard work has been about," said head coach Paul Rice. "For the men, there are a few things we need to work on in terms of depth. However, we are starting to put everything together and ran well down at Arkansas. We are as ready as we are going to be."

At the Chile Pepper Festival on Oct. 16, the men scored 319 points to finish 9th of 50 teams. They finished in front of Auburn, Houston, LSU and TCU.

On the men's side, No. 2 Oklahoma State took the top four places to score 22 points, winning by 51 over No. 7 Indiana. Rounding out the top five were No. 6 Arkansas (3rd - 74 pts.), Adams State (4th - 134 pts.) and Texas A&M (5th - 242 pts.). Colby Lowe of Oklahoma State ran 29:10.97 to win the individual title.

Zack Jones (32nd - 30:32.01 - 10K) took 78 seconds off of his previous 10K best to lead the Golden Grizzly attack. OU got the third, fourth and fifth fastest times, respectively, in school history from Pat Cassady (31:07.31 - 50th), Brandon Griffin (31:19.48 - 60th) and Steven Marcinkowski (31:40.87 - 75th).

Also cracking the top 15, at ninth and 11th, respectively, was Tony Schafer (32:10.99 - 102nd) and Ross Solanskey (32:30.61 - 120th).

"The women have been a pleasant surprise this season," said Rice. "This is a very confident and experienced group. Four of our eight women are seniors so they are been in a lot of big meets and understand the pressure. We're riding a very good high right now and I don't see us coming down anytime soon."

The women scored 262 points to place 5th of 56 teams at the Chile Pepper Festival on Oct. 16. It is the third straight top five finish, the first time this has happened in school history. They finished ahead of three nationally ranked teams; No. 25 Arkansas, No. 35 SMU and No. 39 Oklahoma.

On the women's side, No. 28 Oklahoma State edged No. 24 Indiana, 72-76 to win the title. Texas A&M was third with 162 points while Adams State placed fourth with 196 points. Sarah Pease of Indiana ran 16:39.42 to win the race by nearly 10 seconds.

Lia Jones (15th - 17:23.63 - 5K) was one of six runners who cracked the top 10 in school history. Brittni Hutton ran 17:58.41 to place 51st, breaking her previous career-best by 36 seconds. It was the fourth fastest time in OU history. Rounding out the top five was Sara Lieblein (18:05.27 - 61st), Kelsey Carmean (18:08.26 - 66th) and Erica D'Angelo (18:09.55 - 69th).

Their times ranked fifth, sixth and seventh fastest in school history, respectively. Autumn Cleverley ran the ninth fastest time at 18:18.91, good enough to place 82nd.

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