Posted 1:22 am Thursday, October 30, 2008
Patriots’ Runners Eyeing 4th Title In Row
By TRAVIS YOESTING
Staff Writer
They've been together for four years now. They've won the American Southwest Conference tournament every year since they've been at UT Tyler.
Staff Writer
They've been together for four years now. They've won the American Southwest Conference tournament every year since they've been at UT Tyler.
Now, four senior men's cross country runners are trying to put it all together for a run at the NCAA Division III regional and national championships in November.
But first, they want to repeat as ASC champs.
The Patriot men's cross country team heads to Seguin on Saturday, confident it will defend its three straight conference championships.
The Patriot men's cross country team heads to Seguin on Saturday, confident it will defend its three straight conference championships.
"You've just got to get there on that day," said senior R.J. Cowan. "We've got to get there and just have fun with it and I think it will happen."
The team has reason to be confident. Led by a core group of seniors -- Warren Brown, Ben Donnan, Bojan Kajtaz and Cowan -- the team has won half of its six races this year.
Last year, the team was consistent and won four races. But when they reached the regional championship, they finished third.
The seniors said it was a fluke they didn't finish in the top two to advance to nationals.
"This year, we haven't done well at racing consistently as a team, or racing up to our potential," Donnan said.
While the team admits it is inconsistent, the runners remain confident that this year they can put it all together when it really counts.
"We're hoping our fluke is putting it together this year," said Cowan, a Tyler native and Whitehouse High School graduate.
The Patriots have had Nov. 15 (the date of the regional tournament, also in Seguin) and Nov. 22 (national tournament in Hanover, Ind.) circled on their calendar since the end of last season.
"We're just training through all these races," Cowan said. "It all comes down to Nov. 15 and hopefully after that Nov. 22. We're treating all these races as workouts."
The team has chosen to be at the races mentally, but not completely there physically, with the idea that they will put it all together for the ASC, regional and national meets.
Despite using the previous races as training, the team has won four of the six ASC Runner of the Week awards, and they claim they should have won all of them.
Donnan (Paris HS) has won the last two weekly awards after breaking the school's 10K and 8K records. He also owns a few track and field records to boot.
"(Breaking records) wasn't my initial goal," Donnan said. "It definitely makes you feel good whenever you break records."
Donnan said he has increased the mileage he runs and that more weight training, eating right, getting enough sleep and having a positive attitude has improved his running this year.
Brown (Lindale HS) won the other two top weekly awards earlier in the season after winning the UT Tyler Invitational and the ULM Warhawk Invitational.
Brown said he is striving to be the best runner he can be, knowing that this is the last year for these seniors.
"We all know that this is it for all of us to try to do some special things and beat a lot of big schools that may have passed us up on scholarship offers and make coaches regret their decision," Brown said.
Cowan, whose school record Donnan broke in the 8K, said he doesn't mind losing records to teammates.
"That's just how it goes," Cowan said. "We race for each other. Ben went out there to try to get the team in as good a position as he possibly could. Records come like that."
Kajtaz rounds out the core of seniors. The native of Kakanj, Bosnia & Herzegovina, went to Lake Highlands High School in Dallas before choosing to come to Tyler.
Kajtaz's best finish this year came at the UT Tyler Invitational where he placed fourth.
The group will also get a boost this weekend when fellow senior Corey Kellam arrives from Washington D.C. to compete with the team.
Kellam, from LaGrange, Ky., has traded training on campus and at the Patriot Center for running around the National Mall while on an internship this semester. The seniors said they are excited to get him back when it matters most.
While the ASC tournament on Saturday may be one last training ground before the regional meet, it is still an important race if they want to accomplish the team's goal of reaching nationals.
The men's team will begin its 8K race at 9 a.m. in Seguin. The Patriot women's cross country team starts at 8:30 a.m., running a 6K.
