BRYAN-COLLEGE STATION, Texas – The Texas A&M cross country teams recorded a pair of top-10 placings, while Eric Casarez finished third in the men’s race Friday morning at the Arturo Barrios Invitational at the Dale Watts Cross Country Course.
The men’s champions were Tulane with 103 points, followed by Indiana (113), Incarnate Word (188), Texas A&M (192) and South Dakota State (209) to round out the top five, while the women’s champions were Utah Valley with 97 points, trailed by UCLA (188), Boston College (206), Ohio State (214) and Connecticut (215). The Aggie women placed seventh with 231 points.
“This meet is getting to where we envisioned when we started it,” distance coach Wendel McRaven said. “We wanted to put on a meet two weeks out from the conference championships where we had teams from all over the country. We had all nine NCAA regions represented, five Power 5 conferences and 13 Division I conferences. People left and right after the race were telling me that they were coming back, which I love to hear. Hopefully we attract a few more big names next year and it keeps building. The meet is getting so big and so good that we need to step up our game to match the quality of the meet.”
Leading the Aggie men the majority of the 8k race, Casarez clocked a time of 23:05.3 securing a third-place finish. Cooper Cawthra was the second Aggie to cross the finish line placing 26th with a time of 23:54.3. Aiden Gonzalez-Rodiles (42nd, 24:07.8) finished just ahead of Jonathan Chung who secured 57th with a time of 24:18.5. Rounding out the scoring was Joseph Benn placing 64th with a time of 24:24.3. The Maroon & White secured 192 points for a fourth place team finish.
“This was the best Arturo Meet we’ve had,” Casarez said. “This was the perfect race we needed going into the SEC and today the team had a wakeup call. We now know what we need to focus on and train going forward for our next meet.”
In the women’s race, the Aggies were paced by Maddie Livingston throughout the entirety of the 6k course. Livingston clocked a personal best time of 20:11.9 securing a 18th place finish. Followed by Livingston, Kennady Fontenot finished 25th with a time of 20:18.1 and right behind was Madison Brown clocking a time of 20:27.3 finishing 37th. Rounding out the scoring for the Aggies was Shewaye Johnson (47th, 20:37.8) and Emma Little (108th,…
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