Texas A&M cross country hosted the Texas A&M Invitational at Watts Cross Country Course on Friday morning in front of 5,540 spectators. The No. 2-ranked women and No. 4-ranked men in the South Central Region both finished second while competing against the No. 3 Tulane men and women and the No. 4 SMU women, as well as teams from SMU, Baylor, Blinn College, Houston, UT-Tyler, Oklahoma, North Texas, Sam Houston State, SMU, St. Edward’s, A&M-Commerce, Tarleton State and TCU.
TCU won the men’s 8K title with 36 points, followed by A&M with 39 to bring the Aggies to a 15-2 season record. SMU took the team win in the women’s 5K with 48 points, followed by A&M’s 53 for a 17-1 record for the Aggies.
“On both sides, we ran pretty well,” distance coach Wendel McRaven said. “Biggest thing is I hope this lights a little bit of fire under them. We think we’re pretty good. We know we’re pretty good, but we’re not as good as we want to be.”
Sophomore Zack Munger repeated his third-place finish from the Cowboy Preview last week with a time of 23 minutes and 32.7 seconds, while sophomore Jack Johnston rose in the ranks, coming in fifth at 23:49.9, followed by freshman Luca Santorum in sixth at 23:48.2. Freshman Gilbert Rono finished 11th and senior Jonathan Chung came in 14th.
Munger, Johnston and Rono were all in the top-five at the 2k mark with A&M narrowly leading as a team at 5.7k, with Munger and Johnston leading in the top-five and Santorum making a comeback from 20th. The race came down to the home stretch, and the Maroon and White were edged out of first by TCU for the men’s team title.
Freshman San Juanita Leal took third place for the women with a time of 17:11.5, with teammate junior Kennady Fontenot in ninth at 17:25.9, freshman Maddie Peters in 11th and freshman Megan Roberts in 14th. Leal debuted two weeks ago in the 3K and finished first with a time of 10:30.2 at the Cowboy Preview in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
Leal jumped to an early battle for the lead in the 5k, leading the women’s team at the 2k mark. Down the course, A&M finished five points shy of the team title behind SMU.
“I’m not satisfied, but, comparing my time to last year, I’m pretty happy,” Leal said. “It’s my first race here, and I was pretty happy with the time.”
Next up for the A&M cross country teams is the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational on Friday, Sept. 27 at 12:20 p.m in Madison, Wisconsin at the Zimmer Championship Course.
Olivia Biggs is a general studies junior and contributed this article from the course JOUR 359, Reporting Sports, to The Battalion.
