Sooner Cross Country Travels to Joplin for Saturday Meet

The University of Oklahoma men's and women's cross country teams will compete in the Southern Stampede, hosted by Missouri Southern State University, on Saturday. The competition was added to the Sooner schedule earlier this week. The women's 5k is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. followed by the men's 8k at 9:45 a.m.

This marks the second year for the Sooners under head coach Rodney Rothoff. Rothoff joined the OU staff August 20, 2002.

The Field

The biggest field of the season to date for the Sooners, approximately 1,000 runners are expected to compete. A total of 29 men's team and 28 women's teams are entered in the meet. Host Missouri Southern is currently ranked second (men) and fourth (women) in the Division II South Central Region and the men's team is second nationally. In addition to OU, other Division I teams competing include men and women from Arkansas, Southwest Missouri State, Missouri-Kansas City, Oral Roberts and the men's team from Oklahoma State.

Competing for the Sooners

Scheduled to compete for the OU men in the 8k are seniors Trevor Gillum, junior Andrew Call, sophomore Blake Culp and freshmen Salah Hussein, Stuart Lisle, Tyler Schmiedeberg and Andrew Tower. The OU women will be represented in the 5k by senior Amanda Luksetich, junior Emily Leonard and freshmen 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.

OU will be holding out its top four men and two of its top women runners this weekend as the Sooners continue to train for the championship portion of the schedule.

Kimeli Named Big 12 Runner of the Week

Senior Silverus Kimeli, who transferred to OU from the University of Arkansas, was named the Big 12's Male Cross Country Runner of the Week for the week of September 16. Kimeli won the UNT Invitational at Denton, Texas, Saturday.

The Eldoret, Kenya, senior claimed the 8k title with a time of 24:59. Kimeli was one of six Sooner runners to finish in the top 10 at the race. He helped lead OU to its first team victory in a meet since September, 1998, and was the first Sooner man to win an individual title in the same time.

Kimeli is the first Sooner to earn Big 12 Cross Country Runner of the Week in the eight-year history of the conference.

Sooner Men Ranked in the First Regional Poll

After finishing 13th in the NCAA Regional last November, the Sooner men have been ranked 10th in the first regional poll of the 2003 season. According to Coach Rothoff, the initial poll is a reflection of the athletes who returned from last year as well as the talent of the newcomers who have joined the program.

The Last Time Out

Senior transfer Silverus Kimeli made his first race as a Sooner a special one, winning the individual title of the North Texas Invitational and leading the OU men to a team championship in the process Sept. 13. It marked the first time since September, 1998, for the Sooner men to win a team title and produce the individual overall winner.

Kimeli covered the muddy 8k course at the UNT Research Park in 24:59. Senior Joe McNair was third with a 25:03 and freshman Jason Coleman was sixth with a 25:31 as the Sooner men had six runners finish in the top 10. OU scored 27 points to beat Big 12 opponent Baylor. The Bears finished with 35 points as the Big 12 teams were the class of the field. Southern Methodist was third followed by Texas Christian and North Texas. The Baylor women won the 5k event and the Sooner women were fourth with 78 points behind TCU and SMU who tied for second with 71 points.

Nicola Maye led the Sooner women for the second meet in a row, finishing 10th in the overall standings with an 18:28. Jessica Eldridge was 11th with an 18:30 and Catherine Odell was 14th with an 18:53. Maye, a redshirt freshman, competed in one 5k a year ago before sitting out the rest of the season and her time at UNT was nearly a minute faster than the time she ran last year.

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

'I added this competition to give our young runners another opportunity to run at this distance and to get another opportunity to meet the challenges of collegiate races. I also will use the results from this race to make future decisions on our lineup as we progress into the championship portion of our schedule.

'This will be a really good experience for our teams, especially the younger runners, to race in a larger field. It will be our toughest competition to date and we need to learn to run in races with large fields. I'm also looking forward to seeing the improvement in times from a week ago at the longer collegiate distances.'

Next Up

The Sooners will return to competition on Oct. 4 with the squads splitting up for two meets. Some of the Sooners will head to Orono, Maine, for the Murray Keatinge Invitational while the remainder of the runners will compete in the Cowboy Jamboree in Stillwater.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

Sooner Cross Country Travels to Joplin for Saturday Meet

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