College Sports

By JEREMY COTHAM
Sports Correspondent

The UT Tyler men's and women's cross country teams took advantage of a small field Saturday as they both won their own invitational.

With only three men's and women's teams and less than 30 in each field, the Patriots men's cross country team won the UT Tyler Invitational for the fourth straight year while the women won their own meet for the first time. The men also had runners finish in the top eight places.

Senior Patriot runner Warren Brown, who is coming back from an injury-plagued 2007 season, won the men's race with a time of 26:09, two seconds short of the course record.

"I had a stress fracture in my foot last year and I tried to run through it but I was not 100 percent," Brown said. "Now I'm healthy and it was great to win this race today. We had a lot of support from our friends, fans and other athletes and that was great, especially for us seniors."

Finishing right behind Brown were UT Tyler's top two runners from 2007 in Ben Donnan (26:27) and R.J. Cowan (26:35) who finished in second and third, respectively.

"Warren put in a great summer of training to get him back to where he was before the injury and Warren, R.J. and Ben are just poised to have an outstanding year," said cross country coach Bob Hepler. "The great thing about today is that we held out our fourth and fifth runners and the other team members stepped up to help us win."

That help for the Patriots came from Bojan Kajtaz (27:30) in fourth place, freshman Jeff Chandler (27:59) in fifth, Ross Renfroe (28:10) in sixth, Mark Saroni (28:39) in seventh and the starting guard from the men's basketball team, Anthony Reese (29:08), rounding out the top eight in his cross country debut.

Two other Patriots placed as David Kelley (32:31) came in 16th and Kirk Hesse (32:38) in 17th place.

The Patriots finished the day with 15 points while UT Dallas placed second with 72 points and University of Dallas finished in third with 99 points.

On the women's side, the Patriots were without their top runner, Kamie Cook, but still stepped up to take the team title.

However, it was Angela Cuba from University of Dallas winning the women's race with a time of 24:20.

Behind her were three Patriots in Sarah Hankla (24:53), Jessica Beers (25:54) and what Hepler noted as the amazing story of the day, Lindsey Moore (26:01), who finished in fourth. Moore, who lost her father to cancer this past week just less than two weeks after he was diagnosed, was out running less than five days after her father's funeral.

"For Lindsey to compete at all and take fourth place, considering her recent situation with the passing of her father, is amazing in itself," Hepler said.

In honor of her father, Barry Moore, and for cancer awareness, the entire cross country team, men and women, will wear a headband with the initials "B.M." for the entire 2008 season.

"The women's soccer team had a similar situation where a player's mother had cancer and they did wristbands," Hepler said. "So we looked at what they did and decided to use the headband and I thought it was the appropriate thing for us to do in honor of Barry."

The Patriots also featured one more top-10 finisher in Jules Armstrong, who came in ninth place with a time of 27:41.

Four more Patriots placed in the top 15 as Rachel Carrol (28:05) finished in 11th, Angela Martinez (28:50) in 13th, Claudia Cardenas (29:31) in 14th and Paige Burnett (29:43) in 15th.

"For not having our top runner today, I thought our women did a great job," Hepler said. "As soon as we get Kamie back, our women's team should be very strong and hopefully competing for a conference championship in November."

UT Tyler women finished with 29 points while University of Dallas recorded 36 points followed by UT Dallas with 66.

The men and women cross country teams resume action on Sept. 20 as they head to the University of Louisiana-Monroe to participate in their second NCAA Division I invitational this season.

CLAUDIA CARDENAS: UT Tyler runner competes Saturday at UT Tyler.
(Photo By Kyle G. Horst)