Sooner Women Third, Men Fourth at Maine CC Meet

ORONO, Maine -- True freshman Jessica Eldridge cut another 13 seconds off her career best mark in the 5k to finish eighth overall and help the Sooners to a third place finish in the 12th annual Finish Lynx/Murray Keatinge Invitational Saturday. The Sooner men finished fourth overall, led by Silverus Kimeli who finished 10th overall.

Stanford swept the team titles, scoring 18 points in the men's race and 15 in the women's race. Florida just edged the OU women, finishing with 89 points to OU's 90. New Hampshire was fourth (100) followed by Vermont (112), Maine (136), Holy Cross (196) and Central Connecticut State (244).

Butler was second in the men's race with 66 points followed by Indiana (128), OU (141) and Florida (128), Clemson (141), New Hampshire (181), Maine (256), Holy Cross (291), Central Connecticut (326) and Vermont (326).

Eldridge covered the 5k course in 17:19.10, dropping her career best time from 17:32.00 from two weeks ago.

'I was extremely pleased with the way our runners performed,' said head coach Rodney Rothoff. 'This meet was a great benchmark for where we are at this point in the season. I was very pleased with the way Jessica ran today. We got great performances from Blake Culp, Jimmy Buchanan, Nicola Maye and Andrea Bonner. We also know that we can run better.

'This meet was a great experience for the teams,' Rothoff added. 'They really treat the athletes well here during the competition. I am very pleased with the progress we have made and continue to make each time we compete. It was important that we take advantage of this opportunity to run against teams we don't see that often. These performances could have an important impact on our postseason opportunities."

Kimeli finished the five mile race with a 24:17. Joe McNair was 19th with a 24:35 followed by Buchanan (27th - 24:51); Culp (37 - 25:12); Jason Coleman (38 - 25:13); Tyler Schmiedeberg (43 - 25:30); Darren Hutchins (47 - 25:38) and Stuart Lisle (55 - 26:00).

The times by Buchanan, McNair, Culp, Coleman, Schmiedeberg and Lisle were all career best marks at the five mile distance.

Maye finished 10th with a 17:33 in the women's 5k. Catherine Odell was 15th with an 18:02. Bonner finished with an 18:56 and Kristi Cook finished with a 19:02. Maye and Odell both improved career best times from two weeks ago while Bonner's time was an improvement of nearly 90 seconds on the career best she set at the North Texas meet on Sept. 13. The Sooners will return to competition on Oct. 18 when the teams travel to Fayetteville, Ark., for the Chile Pepper Invitational.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

Sooner Women Third, Men Fourth at Maine CC Meet

Related News

Related Videos

Sponsors