Men's Cross Country Places Fourth at SEC Championships
11/3/2003 12:00:00 AM
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The University of Alabama men's cross country team competed at the SEC Championships this morning which was held at the University of Georgia Golf Course and posted a fourth place finish.
The Tide was led by freshman Josphat Waweru who earned All-SEC status with an eighth place finish, posting a time of 25:34.44.
"Josphat did a real nice job, turning in an all-conference performance in his first conference meet," said Alabama cross country coach Joe Walker. "Obviously we're going to need a similar performance from him if we want to be successful at regionals."
Peter Etoot placed 16th (25:52.50) followed closely by Tyler Stanfield who finished 18th (26:01.48). Also scoring points for Bama were Kevin McDonough with a 25th place finish (26:14.48) and Gaiting Kara with a 31st place finish (26:34.87). Sam Nuckols and Kyle Cleveland rounded out the scoring for the Tide placing 43rd and 44th with times of 27:07.26 and 27:09.22 respectively.
Bama continued its string of Top 7 finishes, having finished in the Top 7 of all five of its meets this season.
Arkansas claimed its 13th consecutive SEC title while the host Georgia Bulldogs came in second. The Florida Gators captured third with 95 points followed by the Tide in fourth with 97 points.
"I thought we competed hard and ran well today and I felt we probably should have finished third," said Walker. "Today was a good test and hopefully we learned that if we don't get it done towards the end of the race it can hurt us."
Kentucky's Thomas Morgan was the individual meet champion, running the 8k course in a time of 24:59.25, over five seconds faster than his closest competitor, Simon Ngata from Georgia.
Bama will be in action again on Saturday, November 15 when the team travels to Auburn to compete in the 2003 NCAA Regional Championship meet.
