Complete Results : Men |
Women
CLINTON, Miss. - Carla Lewis won the American Southwest Conference individual cross country championship for the second time in her career Saturday running past the competition and winning by a span of 18.57 seconds to take the crown. McMurry's women finished second as a team and McMurry's men took third with Ken Wheeler taking third place overall.
Lewis ran a time of 25:01.51 averaging 6:42.80 per mile in the women's 6K race and finished ahead of Mississippi College's Jennifer Cooper who finished as the runner up with a time of 25:20.08.
McMurry's Alaisha Guerra finished third overall with a time of 25:38.49, however, the next McMurry finisher was 14th place and UT-Tyler took the team championship finishing with five runners in the top 13 spots.
On the men's side, Wheeler finished with a time of 28:17.07 averaging 5:41.40 per mile in the men's 8K race. His teammate, and fellow senior Todd Neer finished just 4.84 seconds behind Wheeler to finish fourth overall. McMurry's other two seniors Brad Mullens and Corey Werner were the next two finishers for McMurry at 10th and 17th place respectively.
The hosts, Mississippi College, won the men's race having five runners finish in the top 15. Texas-Tyler took second place to snap a seven-year streak of McMurry's men finishing as the ASC runner up.
Freshmen Colby Freehauf and Jeff Batsche finished 31st and 32nd respectively in their first career conference meets.
Back on the women's side, Kurstin Draper finished 14th (26:57.45), Karlie Dieterich was 16th (27:20.45), and Sarah Ashton finished 17th (27:36.55) to round out McMurry runners in the top 20. Tara McMullen finished 23rd (27:55.77), Brittney McGuire was 29th (28:27.12), Katie Shadowens finished 36th (29:22.14), and Amanda Genzling placed 51st (20:51.09) to round out McMurry's female runners.
Lewis won the ASC individual crown as a freshman in 2006 helping McMurry to its only conference title in school history. She finished third overall in 2007 and sat out 2008 before winning her second title Saturday. Lewis becomes the first runner in McMurry history to win the conference championship twice.
Both teams will run in the NCAA Division III South/Southeast Region Championships in Greensboro, N.C. Nov. 14.