Sooner Cross Country Travels to a Pair of Meets

NORMAN, Okla. -The University of Oklahoma men's and women's cross country teams will split up this Saturday with head coach Rodney Rothoff and 13 Sooners heading to Orono, Maine, for the 12th annual Finish Lynx/Murray Keatinge Invitational while the rest of the squad heads to Stillwater for the 67th annual Cowboy Jamboree.,
In Maine, the women's 5k will begin at 9 a.m. followed by the men's five mile at 10 a.m. (eastern). In Stillwater, the women's 6k will start at 9:10 a.m. followed by the men's 8k. Co-head track and field coach Jill Lancaster and volunteer cross country assistant coach Kelly Rice will take the Sooners to Stillwater. This marks the second year for the Sooners under head coach Rothoff. Rothoff joined the OU staff August 20, 2002.

The Field
These meets will offer the cream of the crop in terms of competition. Defending NCAA men's champion Stanford headlines the field in Maine. Other teams competing include Indiana, Florida, Clemson, Butler, Central Connecticut State, Holy Cross, New Hampshire, Vermont, St. Francis Xavier of Canada and host Maine. The women's field includes Stanford, Penn State, Florida, Butler, Central Connecticut, Holy Cross, Vermont, New Hampshire and St. Francis Xavier. The Stanford men are currently #1 in the country while Indiana is 19th. On the women's side, Stanford in ranked ninth in the country with Penn State 17th.
At OSU, a 26-team field awaits the Sooners including Georgia, two-time men's champion Arkansas, Kansas State, Kansas and Texas Tech. The Arkansas men are ranked fourth in the country heading into this meet.

Competing for the Sooners
Scheduled to compete for the OU men in the Maine race are seniors Jimmy Buchanan, Darren Hutchins, Silverus Kimeli and Joe McNair, sophomore Blake Culp and freshmen Jason Coleman, Stuart Lisle and Tyler Schmiedeberg. The OU women will be represented in the 5k by freshmen Andrea Bonner, Kristi Cook, Jessica Eldridge, Nicola Maye and Catherine Odell. The young Sooners have six true freshmen scheduled to compete Saturday. Lisle and Maye used redshirt years last year as true freshmen.
Running at OSU will be seniors Trevor Gillum and Aldwyn Sappleton, junior Andrew Call, sophomore Billy Grona and freshmen Salah Hussein and Andrew Tower. The OU women will be represented in the 6k by seniors Amanda Luksetich and Michelle Thomas, juniors Jackie Dubois and Emily Leonard and freshman Shannon Wilson.

Sooners Ranked In Regional Polls
Both Sooner teams are ranked seventh in the latest regional rankings. The Sooner men, who were ranked 10th in the region in the MONDO Men's preseason poll, were seventh in the poll released Tuesday. The Sooner women were seventh in the region in the FinishLynx Women's Division I poll that was released Tuesday.

The Last Time Out
Freshman Jessica Eldridge finished third overall with a career best 17:32.00 to help lead the OU women to a second place finish in the Southern Stampede Sept. 20 on the Missouri Southern course. The time improved her career best mark by nearly one minute in her second collegiate meet at the 5k distance.
The Sooner men finished fourth in the team standings, paced by freshman Tyler Schmiedeberg's 16th place finish in the 8k race.
Southwest Missouri State won the women's title with 52 points followed by OU with 97. Arkansas won the men's title with 32 points followed by Harding (92), Southwest Missouri (132) and Oklahoma with 157 points.
Nicola Maye finished seventh overall as OU placed three runners in the top 15 and four in the top 25.
Maye's time of 17:48.20 also was an improvmeent in her career best by nearly 45 seconds. Catherine Odell was 13th with a career best mark of 18:12.90. Kristi Cook was 22nd with an 18:42.50 and Amanda Luksetich was 52nd with a 19:37.00. Emily Leonard finished the 5k course in 22:56.70. Cook's time was a career best mark in the 5k as was the time by Luksetich. A senior, Luksetich knocked nearly a minute off a career best she had set as a sophomore.
Schmiedeberg's time of 25:18.60 is a career best. Stuart Lisle finished 24th with a time of 25:38.00 and Andrew Call was31st with a 25:48.60. Andrew Tower finished 38th with a 26:04.80 followed by Trevor Gillum with a 26:21.70 and Billy Grona with a 27:14.60.
The times by Lisle, Tower, Call, Gillum and Grona were career best marks in an 8k event. Call's time improved his career best by nearly two minutes.

The Coach
Rodney Rothoff joined the Sooner coaching staff in August 2002 after two seasons as the head cross country and assistant track coach for the Tennessee women's program. In his tenure in Knoxville, Rothoff coached 11 NCAA cross country and track All-Americans. He coached the 2002 SEC champion in the outdoor 800 and had four All-SEC cross country selections. His 2001 cross country team was the SEC runner-up. A 1990 graduate of Methodist College in North Carolina, Rothoff has also coached Clemson and Arkansas-Little Rock. His impact on the Sooners was demonstrated last November as the OU men finished 13th in the NCAA Regional, OU's best finish in the regional meet in six years. He also saw one of his runners, Aldwyn Sappleton, qualify for the 2003 NCAA Indoor and Outdoor meets and earn All-America honors in the outdoor 800.

The Coach Says
On the meet in Maine: 'I have always believed that the experience of being a student-athlete is more than just the competition. This meet will give us the opportunity to run against different teams and expose our program in a part of the country that we haven't competed in before.'
On the meet at OSU: 'This is an important meet for us for several reasons. It is one of the oldest meets in the country, it is an in-state competition and we will see other Big 12 teams.'
On the season: 'The preseason' is over with and now it is time to find out where we are. From here on out, everyone we beat and everyone who beats us matters. The meets this weekend give us one more opportunity to increase our intensity and evaluate how our training is going. This is an important time of the season and these meets are important because they are the next to last competitions before the conference meet. We need to continue to improve and to contine to develop.'

Next Up
The Sooners will return to competition on Oct. 18 with the teams heading to Fayetteville, Ark., for another of the featured meets of the cross country season -- the Chile Pepper Invitational. That will mark the final meet of the regular season. The Big 12 Championships are scheduled for Oct. 31 in Austin, Texas, followed by the NCAA Regional Championship in Stillwater on Nov. 15 and the NCAA Championship in Cedar Falls, Iowa, on Nov. 24.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

Sooner Cross Country Travels to a Pair of Meets

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