Texas A&M’s Karis Jochen edged out Oklahoma State’s Natalie Baker to claim the individual title and lead the A&M women’s cross country team to a fifth-place finish at the Crimson Classic. The men’s team was the runner-up at Friday’s meet, which was led by Cameron Villarreal individually placing fifth.
Jochen bettered a field of 234 runners in a hard-fought race en route to her individual title. She was challenged by Baker until the very end to run the 5,000 meter course in 16:46.23 ahead of Baker, 16:46.95. Alabama’s Katelyn Greenleaf placed third while Oklahoma State remained nearly untouched to win the women’s title, tallying 30 points.
The Aggie men’s team took second to Oklahoma State, who had another dominating performance at Harry Pritchett Running Park. In the Division I men’s race, Villarreal recorded a time of 24:28:56, as he finished fifth among 218 runners spanning 8,000 meters. The individual champion was Oklahoma State’s Cerake Geberkidane, running 23:40.78. Alabama’s Antibahs Kosgei ran to a second place finish in 24:17.47 ahead of Oklahoma State’s Vegard Oelstad (24:19.49) and Samford’s Arse’ne Guillorel (24:24.02).
As Villarreal again led the Aggies, the supporting crew determined how well they placed as a team. Austin Wells and Alex Riba finished together placing 15th in 24:55.37 and 17th in 25:00.63, respectively. To wrap up the men’s top finishers for A&M, include Christian Farris (28th, 25:23.03), Juan Uribe (30th, 25:29.33), Ryan Teel (38th, 25:34.19), Colin Stoeber (42nd, 25:41.57) Elliott Farris (57th, 25:52.82) and Aaron Murray (93rd, 26:22.63).
The Cowboys won the men’s title with a blistering 27 points with all of their top scorers all finishing top in the top 10 runners, respectively 1-3-6-8-9. Texas A&M’s score of 95 points, placing 5-15-17-28-30-38, earned them second place at Tuscaloosa.
Rounding the top men’s Division I race includes Lipscomb (131), Auburn (146), North Florida (170), Alabama (182), UT-Arlington (237), Southern Illinois (245), Belmont (258) and LSU (294).
Arin Rice ran a time of 17:35.32 to place second for the Aggies, as Kelsey Persyn placed 43rd to run 18:04.10. The rest of the top runners for the women also include Katie Watson (54th, 18:11.32) and Haley Deakins (64th, 18:16.48).
The next group of finishers for the women’s team was led by Lauren Fontana, who placed 86th in 18:40.01, Laura Craig (89th, 18:40.98), Emily Willingham (90th, 18:42.16), Hannah Campbell (100th,18:48.57) and Kaitlin Tanner (133rd,19:13.24).
Oklahoma State, currently ranking 28th in the country, won the women’s race with 30 points by a large margin over No. 30 Alabama (71). Rounding off the Division I women’s race was Auburn (74), Mississippi (117), Texas A&M (166), South Alabama (210), Lipscomb (253), Southern Mississippi (265), North Florida (275) and Texas-Arlington (322).
In two weeks, the Aggies will host the SEC Championships featuring a slate of nationally ranked cross country teams at the Dale Watts XC course.
