 |
|
|||||||
|
||||||||
|
|
Saints women finish strong, while men run too fast, too soon
The Advocate
The vibration of runners' feet ricocheted off the ground Saturday as if a herd of cattle was stampeding through Bush Park during the 36th annual Charles Bowles Invitational in Salem at Willamette University.
MHCC team members agreed they couldn't have asked for a better day — "not too hot and not too cold," with a tint of grey overcast in the sky.
"It was perfect," freshman Donnie Coulson said.
Both the men's and women's teams competed in a division that was a combination of NAIA schools, community colleges, clubs and unattached runners. Unattached means that as long as you're enrolled in college, you can enter certain collegiate races as an "opener runner."
Twenty-six teams competed in the women's 5K run and 25 teams in the men's 8K run.
The Saints women grabbed 18th place. Sophomore Amanda Faggard led the way, finishing in 19:36.34, which was good for 94th out of 239 runners. Among community college runners, she took 6th place out of 46 competitors.
Freshman Gabriella Diaz started the race even with Faggard, but finished shortly behind with a time of 19:47.81, which was good for 101st, (9th out of community college runners).
"We did really well against the other community colleges," Coach Matt Hart said of the women's team. He also said the women's team is going to make its mark in the meets to come. "We are challenging for a trophy this year; it's a work in progress. We have a couple of rookies and a few second-year girls. It's a pretty good mix. We are ready to break through, and we're kind of excited about that," said Hart.
Hart continued to emphasize that his athletes are using these meets to better their times, gain more strength and to prepare for the Southern Region Championship and NWAACC Championship.
Coulson came into the meet with a mindset of breaking 28 minutes, which he fell barely short of as the Saints' top male finisher: He posted a time of 28:00.64. "If I knew this course a little bit better, I would have finished in the high 27s (minutes)," he said just after the race.
"They told us it was going to be a fast course but it wasn't as fast as I thought it was going to be. I didn't think we checked out the course well enough during the warm up."
Coulson finished 202nd in a field of 290 runners, which was good for 21st out of 48 community college racers.
Why couldn't Coulson break 28-minutes?
"We got stuck in the first mile going too fast," he said.
A very satisfied Hart agreed with Coulson that his men came out of the gates too aggressively.
"Our guys went out very, very fast. Too fast," Hart said. "They had to back off in the middle (of the race). They rebounded well at the end.
"That's the disadvantage of having a young team. They made a rookie mistake."
Next week Oct. 15 the Saints women and men travel to Oregon City to compete in the annual Mike Hodges Invite at Clackamas Community College. Teams competing are: Clark Penguins, Clackamas Cougars, Everett Trojans, Green River Gators, Olympic Rangers, SW Oregon Lakers and the Treasure Valley Chukars.
The Advocate reserves the right to not publish comments based on their appropriateness.