This year's C-USA Cross Country Championships will be held on Saturday morning in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Men

Jon Warren has his best team in years, with all of the top runners back from last year's squad. Hociel Landa and Alex Topini lead the team, and should be the Owls' top finishers. Andrew Abikhaled, Ace Castillo, and Adolfo Carvalho could make up the top 5, with Jason Bugg, Connor Meaux and Matthew Murray just behind.

Carvalho and Meaux are the only seniors.

Unfortunately for the Owls, Middle Tennessee is loaded with talented Kenyans, and this might be their best team ever. Currently, they are ranked 15th in the nation, and they are talented enough to be a top-10 team.

Rice will battle with North Texas and UTEP for 2-3-4, I believe. Charlotte has been good recently, but the 49ers were hit hard by graduation.

Rice is 5th in the South Central Region.

Women

Rice should be led by freshman sensation Grace Forbes, who finished 3rd overall in Santa Clara. Khayla Patel should be the number 2 Owl, with Alyssa Balandran, freshman walk-on Rachel Shoemaker, Lourdes Vivas de Lorenzi and Ashley Messineo likely the top 5. I think the key for the Owls is for the talented Vivas de Lorenzi to have fully recovered from last year's injury issues. It could be that our 6th and 7th runners may need to run well also - at Santa Clara it was Mary Claire Neal and Loren Goddard.

The Owls will be without one of their top runners, Ryann Helmers, who is redshirting this fall.

As with the guys, Middle Tennessee must be the favorites. They are not nationally ranked, though they received votes in the latest poll. They are 5th in the South Region. Rice is 4th in the South Central Region.

I'm thinking it will be MTSU with a close win over Rice, with UTEP (always a question mark when they can bring in unknown Kenyans) in 3rd.

Rice finishes third in the men’s race... Women struggling at the 1.7KM split.

Rice women finish in 4th, with Forbes finishing 5th overall.

Guys ran well - I did not account for Charlotte's adding several good freshmen.

With the women, I totally forgot to mention Southern Miss in my preview. They don't have any front-runners, but have 7 really solid upperclassmen.

I'm actually encouraged by our women's effort - not only is Grace Forbes the real deal, Lourdes Vivas de Lorenzi seems to be getting back in form. We have 13 days until NCAA Regionals (Fayetteville).

Women

1. MTSU 42
2. Southern Miss 74
3. UTEP 84
4. Rice 97

5. Grace Forbes
10. Khayla Patel
23. Lourdes Vivas de Lorenzi
26. Alyssa Balandran
33. Rachel Shoemaker

Men

1. MTSU 31
2. Charlotte 48
3. Rice 89
4. UTEP 93

9. Hociel Landa
16. Alex Topini
20. Ace Castillo
21. Andrew Abikhaled
23. Adolfo Carvalho
26. Matthew Murray

Here are the scoring runners for the top C-USA women's teams at the meet:

MTSU

Eusila Chepkemei (JR) - Kapsabet, Kenya
Joice Jebor (JR) - Eldoret, Kenya
Pamela Kosgei (JR) - Eldoret, Kenya
Mercy Chepkurui (FR) - Kenya
Faith Rono (FR) - Eldoret, Kenya

Southern Miss

Sandra Szpott (SR) Wyrzysk, Poland
Lina May (SO) - Vancleave, Mississippi
Emma Kate Holdbrooks (RS-JR) - Winfield, Alabama
Kate Maddox (JR) - Starkville, Mississippi
Monika Gebarzewska (SR) - Wroclaw, Poland

UTEP

Winny Koech (SR) - Iten, Kenya
Linda Cheruiyot (SR) - Metkei, Kenya
Carolyne Chepkosgei (JR) - Kitale, Kenya
Karoline Daland (SO) - Grimstad, Norway
Joan Kimaiyo (FR) - Iten, Kenya

Rice

Grace Forbes (FR) - Wallingford, Pennsylvania
Khayla Patel (SR) - Houston, Texas
Lourdes Vivas de Lorenzi (JR) - Spring, Texas
Alyssa Balandran (SO) - Katy, Texas
Rachel Shoemaker (FR) - Vienna, Virginia

It’s ironic that our team is mostly domestic given the overall composition of our student body compared to these other schools.

Here are the scoring runners for the top men's teams at the meet:

MTSU

Jacob Choge (SR) - Eldoret, Kenya
Kigen Chemadi (SR) - Ainbkoi, Kenya
Lebo Mosito (SR) - Pretoria, South Africa
Brian Rono (SO) - Kenya
Hillary Kimaiyo (FR) - Eldoret, Kenya

Charlotte

Alex Cornwell (SR) - Harrisburg, N.C.
Paul Arrendondo (RS-JR) - Fayetteville, N.C.
Zach Marchinko (SR) - Salisbury, N.C.
Nicolas Scudder (FR) - Raleigh, N.C.
Brian Picone (FR) - Cary, N.C.

Rice

Hociel Landa (JR) - Phoenix, Arizona
Alex Topini (JR) - The Woodlands, Texas
Ace Castillo (RS-FR) - Corpus Christi, Texas
Adolfo Carvalho (SR) - Cockeysville, Maryland
Andrew Abikhaled (SO) - Austin, Texas

UTEP

Titus Cheruiyot (FR) - Eldoret, Kenya
Rodgers Korir (SO) - Eldoret, Kenya
Boaz Ronoh (SO) - Eldoret, Kenya
Cornelius Kapel (JR) Wei-Wei, Kenya
Kayn Quinones (FR) - El Paso, Texas

(11-03-2019 06:44 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  It’s ironic that our team is mostly domestic given the overall composition of our student body compared to these other schools.

I dunno, Vienna and Wallingford *sound* pretty international

(11-03-2019 09:59 PM)owl at the moon Wrote:  

(11-03-2019 06:44 PM)ExcitedOwl18 Wrote:  It’s ironic that our team is mostly domestic given the overall composition of our student body compared to these other schools.

I dunno, Vienna and Wallingford *sound* pretty international

Lourdes Vivas de Lorenzi was born in Argentina.
Patel and Balandran are not the most American-sounding names either...

We should recruit more Kenyan students instead of Chinese. We could get lucky.

(11-06-2019 08:36 AM)OldOwl Wrote:  We should recruit more Kenyan students instead of Chinese. We could get lucky.

TOEFL scores would prevent that. The Chinese cheat on those tests; the Kenyans cheat on PED tests.