Casarez Earns All-SEC Honors While Aggie Men Finish Fifth, Women Eighth at SEC Championships – Texas A&M Athletics

OXFORD, Miss. – Eric Casarez’s eighth-place individual finish led the Texas A&M men’s team to a fifth-place finish, while the women’s team finished eighth at the Southeastern Conference Championships on Friday morning at the Ole Miss Golf Course.
 
Casarez covered the 8k course in 23:21.36 on his way to All-SEC second team honors. With his eighth-place run, Casarez had the highest SEC Championships finish of his career; he finished 25^th in 2021, 36^th in 2020 and 15^th in 2019. After Casarez, Francesco Romano (22^nd, 24:00.39), Chandon Chhikara (23^rd, 24:02.85), Gavin Hoffpauir (34^th, 24:24.07) and Jonathan Chung (41^st, 24:33.13) led the Aggie men to their highest finish at the SEC Championship meet since 2019, when they also placed fifth.
 
“Eric has had a couple tough SEC races prior to this one,” head coach Pat Henry said. “It’s great to see Eric do what he did here today. That’s a big time finish. This is a great conference and to be in that top group is a great run for him. Our men finished fifth today, that’s a big run from them. We have a competitive group of guys and it’ll be fun to see them continue to improve.”
 
The women were led by Julia Abell, who crossed the line in 25^th at the end of the 6k race, stopping the clock at 20:33.67. Behind Abell, Abbey Santoro ran 20:50.39 to earn 34^th place. Maddie Livingston (21:09.61) and Grace Plain (21:10.97) ran down the homestretch together, placing 49^th and 51^st, respectively. Deirdre Nelsen was the final scorer for the Aggies, clocking 21:18.52 to finish 61^st.
 
The Aggie women finished eighth, their highest team place at the SEC Championships since 2017.
 
“I thought the women competed really well,” distance coach Wendel McRaven said. “Julia Abell and Abbey Santoro had their best SEC finishes ever. We can be excited about the progress we’re making as a team. We’re headed in the right direction. We’ve got more ahead of us; we’ll keep working and be a little bit better two weeks from now at the regional meet.”
 
Next Up
The Aggie men’s and women’s cross country teams will host the South Central Regional meet at the Dale Watts Cross Country Course on November 11.
 
Quotes
Distance Coach Wendel McRaven
On the team’s performance…
“Our men put themselves in…