Razorbacks continue cross country dominance
FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas’ women’s cross country team won handily last week at the Southeastern Conference Cross Country Championships in Auburn, Ala., while the men placed second and celebrated a champion of their own.
Cabot’s Micah Huckabee exhibited the women’s team’s dominance as strongly as the six teammates to finish ahead of her. Katrina Robinson, Lauren Gregory, Carina Viljoen, Taylor Werner and Sydney Brown placed second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and ninth with officially 10th-place finisher Maddy Reed running the 6,000-meter course together in a virtual 19:43.80 dead heat. Pre-med student Huckabee placed 16th.
“Our No. 7 would have been second on everybody’s team except Florida,” said Arkansas head coach Lance Harter.
Florida was led by SEC champion Jessica Pascoe with teammate Elisabeth Bergh taking eighth. The Gators were a distant runner-up in Arkansas’ 24-69 victory and sixth successive SEC championship.
“She would have been a major player on everybody’s team but Arkansas, Micah Huckabee from Cabot,” Harter said. “She’s on a roll right now. She’s applied for med school and last week ran the best race of her life (19:53.73). Eligibility, she’s a junior, but academically, a senior. She has the option to come back, but if med school calls I’m sure she’ll take advantage of it.”
In the meantime, Huckabee has the Nov. 9 NCAA South Central Regional Qualifying meet in College Station, Texas, to run as part of Harter’s team. The NCAA Championships will be held on Nov. 17 in Madison, Wisc.
“We had a race plan that we would have wave One, our top four, Katrina, Carina, Lauren and Taylor running together,” Harter said. “You guys go out and set up a pack and give each other feedback and strength in numbers and Wave Two would tuck in a little bit behind and see (with their fifth and final scorer) where we are
“I caught them at 600 and then again at the mile mark and they were all side by side. Wave one and wave two just merged together. It was a mass in front and they never let go. It basically was the Florida girl, the Auburn girl (Joyce Kimeli, fifth), the Georgia girl (Jessica Drop, seventh) and our crew. We had six in the top 10.”
Freshman Robinson ran 19:00.09, a Razorbacks freshman SEC meet record. The previous best run by an Arkansas freshman was set by Andreina Byrd on the same Auburn course in 2001.
“She (Robinson) had a fantastic race,” Harter said. “She led part of the race, and she really wanted to win it. That’s just her nature. (Jessica) Pascoe is a phenomenal athlete with great credentials and was able to get away from her in the last kilometer, but she was able to support Lauren Carina and Taylor.”
Favored Ole Miss prevented men’s coach Chris Bucknam’s team from winning their ninth consecutive crown, but Arkansas unexpectedly crowned the individual champion in Gilbert Boit. The junior transferred last January from Tennessee Tech.
Alabama’s Alfred Chelanga was the pre-meet favorite as the top returning SEC finisher from last year. Boit beat him over Auburn’s 8,000-meter course, clocking 22:20.20 to Chelenga’s runner-up 22:27.60.
“I think last year at the Ohio Valley Conference meet, he might have been ninth or 10th place,” Bucknham said. “I’m really, really pleased with his effort. We did some adjusting to his mileage and he looked phenomenal. Chelanga is a good athlete, but Gilbert had a great day and, hopefully, can build on that.”
Boit helped fill a void after Alex George and Austen Dalquist exhausted their eligibility in cross country in 2017, but they are still eligible for the 2019 indoor and outdoor track season. The team also lost All-American Jack Bruce and Andrew Ronoh to career-ending injuries.
Boit, Cameron Griffith and Ryan Murphy placed first, third and ninth, respectively. Ethan Moen, the projected fifth man, finished a strong 14th.
“If you had told me we were going to finish, first and third and my normal fifth guy would be 14th, I would take it any day of the week,” Bucknam said.
Matt Young, last year’s SEC Freshman of the Year, tied up and stumbled during the last 200 meters and struggled to finish 43rd.
“He went from being in the top 10 with 200 meters to go,” Bucknam said. “I think it hit him at 400, but he hung on and, then the 200, he was right with Murphy and then it was over.”
“I learned a lesson that some of these young guys, I have to take a little pressure off them,” Bucknam added. “Matt has made so much progress over high school. Last year (in the NCAA Cross Country field of 230) he was in the top half of the field as a freshman.”
Graham Brown, 17th, became Arkansas’ fifth and final scorer. Ole Miss scored at fourth, sixth, seventh, eighth and 11th.
Ole Miss coach Ryan Vanhoy, whose Rebels have knocked on the door but been denied by Arkansas the last several years, knew it took a peak team effort for Ole Miss to prevail.
“We’ve tried to do this a number of times, and the experiences from the past, learning from mistakes, making adjustments and executing our race plan perfectly was the difference today,” Vanhoy said.
The Razorbacks and Rebels will likely meet again at the NCAA Men’s Championships on Nov. 17 in Madison. The Razorbacks must first qualify Nov. 9 in College Station.
“Going forward for the regional meet qualifying is our No. 1 priority,” Bucknam said. “As a team we haven’t run our best race yet.”