Cross country hoping to bounce back at Penn State after stumbling at Notre Dame

By Steve Lansdale

NOTRE DAME, Ind. — Facing the toughest competition they have encountered this season, the Texas cross country teams finished in the middle of the back at the Joe Piane Notre Dame Invitational.

The No. 30 men’s team finished 13^th in a field of 25 teams, while the women’s team placed 16^th in a field of 23 teams.

Texas cross country coach Brad Herbster said[s2If current_user_can(access_s2member_level1)] that the Longhorns have the talent to produce better results than they did Friday.

“We’re a little disappointed with the results. That’s not the results we’re looking for with that group,” he said. “We’ve got to do a better job of finishing races. We’ve got the pieces. They look good in practice. We just (have) got to transfer over to races.”

Sophomore Alex Rogers paced the men’s team, finishing the five-mile course in 24:07.2 — good for 19^th place. Senior Robert Uhr finished 11.5 seconds later to cross the finish line in 34^th place.

“Today was a good start for Alex, and Robert ran a really nice race, but we need to have our other five guys where Robert is,” Herbster said. “Alex wanted to make top 10, and he was seven seconds off that, but seven seconds is the difference between reaching your goals and not in a race like this.”

In a field that included three top-five teams and six nationally ranked squads, Mary Beth Hamilton finished first among the Longhorns — 75^th overall — finishing the 5K race in 17:25.1 … a time that was just 12 seconds ahead of UT’s fifth finisher. Herbster said he wants to see the group push through the pack to help Texas post a better team score.

“The women, when you look at the results, a 12-second gap is a really good gap,” Herbster said. “The problem is we needed to be 10 seconds ahead for each person. We were in a solid position early on we just fell back the last K. We weren’t clicking the way we do in practice. We need to transfer what we do in practice over to the race.”

Despite their modest overall results, the Longhorns were able to beat some ranked opponents. The men finished ahead of Florida State, which is tied with Texas at No. 30 in the national rankings, and the women finished two places ahead of No. 24 Vanderbilt.

The Longhorns now have two weeks to prepare for their next meet, the Penn State Open in University Park, Pa.

“We’ll get home, regroup and get ready for Penn State. The good news is we’ve got the guys and girls in the same place,” Herbster said. “Today was a day that kind of looked like we took a step back and made some of the mistakes we made at this time last year. We want to make sure we’re ready to go and bounce back. Penn State will be an opportunity to turn some things around.”
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