Story by Matthew McGinnis, Athletics Communications
BRYAN – COLLEGE STATION, Texas – Eric Casarez’s second place finish led the Aggie men to the team title, while Julia Abell paced the Aggie women to a fourth place finish at the Arturo Barrios Invitational, hosted at the Dale Watts Cross Country Course Saturday morning.
“Our culture is getting better and better each year,” said Casarez. “We have never won this meet since I’ve been here so it was nice to dominate today.”
Running with only one shoe for the majority of the 8k race, Casarez finished runner up, 1.4 seconds behind Bradley Makuvire of Tulane. Casarez’s time of 23:26.9 led the Aggie men as they had five of the top 25 finishers. Francesco Romano joined Casarez in the top ten with his time of 24:04.6 to finish 10th. Completing the Aggies’ top five were Jonathan Chung (14th, 24:08.6), Chandon Chhikara (22nd, 24:15.1) and Gavin Hoffpauir (25th, 24:21.3).
In the field of 40 schools, the Aggie men won the team title with a score of 71 points, topping second place Ohio State’s score of 136.
Leading the Aggie women throughout the entirety of the 6k race, Abell clocked a time of 20:48.0 to place 12th. Abbey Santoro was the second Aggie through the finish line, placing 25th with her time of 21:13.7. Deirdre Nelson (37th, 21:37.1) finished just ahead of teammate Maddie Livingston (40th, 21:38.7), while Kennady Fontenot was the final Aggie scorer, registering a time of 22:01.7 to finish 62nd.
“Julia [Abell] did a nice job,” said McRaven. “Overall it was a solid performance on the women’s side with all things considered. We didn’t run a great race, we were missing pieces and we finished fourth. That goes to show that we are better than a year ago when we had everyone and finished fourth, it’s a sign of our progress and our depth.”
Next Up
The Texas A&M men’s and women’s cross country teams travel to Oxford, Mississippi to take on the Southeastern Conference Championship meet on Friday, October 28.
Texas A&M Quotes
Junior Distance Runner Eric Casarez
On finishing with only one shoe and team win…
“Our team killed it, I didn’t even realize how well we had done. Running with only one shoe was one of the crazier things that happened to me in the race. We got the win and that’s all that matters. We have some good momentum going into conference.”
On the team culture and heading into SECs…
“Our culture is getting better and better each year. This is something new for us, we have never won this meet since I’ve been here so it was nice to dominate today. Ever since I’ve been here, the best we’ve ever done at SECs is fifth so we are looking to do better than what we’ve done in the recent years. We have the team to do it.”
on the crowd today…
“This is a crowd that you can’t beat. You have people cheering on each side, it’s amazing. The volunteers and athletics staff does a really good job of putting on a great meet every year, we really appreciate them.”
Distance Coach Wendel McRaven
On the men’s race execution…
“We wanted to get out a little quicker because we didn’t do a very good job of that at Paul Short Run, and we executed that plan but it wasn’t perfect by any means because you could see some people get trapped a little early with the big field.”
On Eric Casarez’s performance…
“Eric [Casarez] ran well just cruising with the front runners, especially to be running with only one shoe, it was a really good performance.”
On the women’s team performance…
“To get fourth in this field without Grace Plain and I didn’t know until it was 2k and I noticed that Abbey [Santoro] fell and got knocked down at the start and I didn’t know that was going to happen until after the race, she did a great job for being our No. 2 runner. Julia [Abell] did a nice job, overall it was a solid performance on the women’s side with all things considered. We didn’t run a great race, we were missing pieces and we finished fourth. That goes to show that we are better than a year ago when we had everyone and finished fourth, it’s a sign of our progress and our depth.”
Head Coach Pat Henry
On today’s meet…
“It was one of the better showings that I’ve seen from our men in a number of years. Eric [Casarez] looked good and to run the last 3k with only one shoe showed a lot of heart for what he was doing. Coach McRaven is doing a great job with them and they’re getting better as a group. On the women’s side, we looked a little more scattered this week. You can see some things they are improving on, their postures are getting better as the race goes on. I think they’re all going to get better as we keep moving on.”
On the crowd…
“A lot of people are starting to realize this is one of the best courses in the country. Anytime you have a program like Ohio State come down and Lipscomb who is known for having a good distance program and Florida, that’s encouraging for me and our program. We built this course to be a national course and that’s what it’s turning into. I thank the 12th Man and the administration for their attendance today, there is thousands of people out here. We had 800+ runners today and just looking at how many people showed up you can see that cross country is a sport that has a lot of following.”