This Friday evening, September 9, Rice men's and women's cross country will host a meet on the intramural fields just east of the George R. Brown Tennis Center. Parking is FREE in Lot 4 adjacent to the fields. Women run 4,000 meters at 6:20, with the men's 4 mile race at approximately 6:50.

This will be the only time to see the Owls run this year, as all other meets will be outside of Houston.

Rice women, led by Grace Forbes, are ranked #2 in the preseason NCAA South Central Poll. The men, competing for the first time in 5 years without Hociel Landa, are ranked just 12th.

Other than Grace, I would look for Caitlin Wosika, Alyssa Balandran, Rachel Shoemaker, and Taigen Hunter-Galvan. I am hopeful that some of the sophomores will show improvement, and I have no idea about the freshmen.

For the guys, they'll be led by junior Travis Dowd, and sophomores Davis Thames and Eliot Metcalf. After that, it's a question mark, as Coach Jon Warren hopes to develop some of his younger runners.

The women and men each won. Grace ran at what looked like 75% and still finished 30 seconds (about 150 meters) ahead of teammate Taigen Hunter-Galvan.

The men's race might have turned out differently had the two Texas A&M-Corpus Christi runners (who were in the lead group with Rice's Travis Dowd) not sprinted for the finish, not realizing that there was one more lap. Oops!

Rice sweeps athlete of the week awards.

https://conferenceusa.com/news/2022/9/13...-week.aspx

In the NCAA South Central Regional rankings, Rice women remain at #2, while the men move from #12 to #8.

The South Central Region consists of all schools from Arkansas, Louisiana and all but the far west schools in Texas (no UTEP or Texas Tech).

This morning, Rice women finished 3rd at Texas A&M, while Grace Forbes was the individual champion by 10 seconds.

Texas A&M 29
TCU 46
Rice 56

I expect Rice to drop from 2nd to 5th in the next South Central rankings.

Note: the team was not at full strength.

The Rice men's team won a low key event this morning - the Cowboy Stampede at McNeese State.

Rice 29
McNeese State 48
Houston Christian 69
Lamar 84
Wiley 149

Individuals
1. Eliot Metcalf
4. Travis Dowd
7. Daniel Cohen
8. Wesley Wright
9. Davis Thames
12. Grant Samara

48-29 is not quite the same margin that we beat McNeese by in football, but probably not as many turnovers in this one.

I’ll take it!

Go Owls

Latest South Central Regional Rankings

Women

1. Arkansas
2. Texas
3. Texas A&M
4. LSU
5. SMU
6. Tulane
7. TCU
8. Rice
9. New Orleans
10. Arkansas State

Men

1. Arkansas
2. Texas
3. Texas A&M
4. Tulane
5. Arkansas State
6. Incarnate Word
7. Central Arkansas
8. Rice
9. LSU
10. Lamar

Friday, September 30, the Rice women will compete at the Paul Short Invitational at Lehigh. There is a solid field, including 2 nationally ranked squads - #12 North Carolina and #18 Georgetown. Texas A&M from the South Central Region will also be there. The "Gold" race will start at 11:45 EDT.

Results Page

Through the first mile, there's still a huge lead pack, including Grace Forbes. The remainder of the team is holding back (in 37th place) in order to finish strong.

Still a tight group at the top at 2 miles - 28 runners within 2 seconds of the lead. Grace is still with the leaders. Rice has moved up to 29th.

This is a 6K race (3.73 miles) with some rolling hills.

Grace finishes 9th overall. She lost quite a bit on that last 3K.

Rice finished 21st overall, 2 spots behind Texas A&M. Georgetown and North Carolina tied with 60 points at the top.

Update: Rice finished 22nd.