The Texas A&M cross country team participated in the SEC Cross Country Championships on Friday, Oct. 27 at Charwood Golf Club in Columbia, South Carolina.
The first event for the Men’s 8000-meter was the 800-meter dash, where senior Eric Casarez finished in sixth place.
Casarez, who is on the A&M All-Time Top-12 Performer list, finished the dash with a time of 2:08.1. The next closest Aggie in this dash was sophomore Cooper Cawthra, who finished 81st.
In the 1800-meter, Casarez finished in 10th place, leading the way yet again for A&M.
Junior Jonathan Chung finished 39th in the 3000-meter, and right behind him was Cawthra in 40th place. Cawthra climbed up the results yet again in the 4000-meter, finishing 32nd. Casarez dropped in the 3000m and 4000m to 13th and 16th place, respectively, but he was able to rebound in the 5000-meter, getting back up to the 13th spot.
After finishing the 6000-meter and 7000-meter in the 11th and 8th spots, Casarez finished the Men’s 8000m in 10th place with a final time of 23:14.9, nearly matching his career-best time of 23:14.2 he earned in the 8000m at the SEC Championships last year.
Casarez was the leading runner in all of the Men’s 8000m dashes for the Maroon and White, and A&M as a team finished in fourth place with a result of 140.
The winning team, Arkansas, finished in first place with a result of 38.
Like the Men’s 8000m, the Women’s 6000m began with an 800m dash, where the Aggies struggled.
The highest-placing Aggie in the 800m was sophomore Kennady Fontenot, who finished in 72nd and had a time of 2:29.0; however, A&M found better luck in the 1800m, with junior Maddie Livingston and Fontenot finishing 40th and 41st.
Livingston finished at a time of 6:00.3, whereas Fontenot finished with 6:01.0. Fontenot continued to move up, as she ended the 3000m dash in 39th. Right behind her in 40th place was senior Madison Brown, who clocked in at 10:02.6.
The Aggies continued to work their way up in the results after their slow start, and Livingston finished in 24th place in the 6000m dash to wrap up the women’s event. Her final time was 20:41.8, and A&M’s women’s team finished in sixth place with a result of 181.
Florida ended up winning the Women’s 6000m with a result of 49.
This was the second-straight meet where the men’s team finished in fourth place, as they also placed fourth in the Arturo Barrios Invitational two weeks ago.
The women’s team showed some improvement,finishing in sixth place after finishing seventh at the Barrios Invitational; however, this was the second-straight meet where they were unable to finish in the top three, a feat they accomplished in the first three meets of the season.
A&M’s next meet will be at the NCAA South Central Regional on Friday, Nov. 11 at 11:30 a.m. at Agricultural Park in Fayetteville, Arkansas.