Sept. 13, 2006

The University of Texas-Pan American men's and women's cross country teams will travel to College Station, TX, to compete in the Texas A&M Cross Country Invitational hosted by Texas A&M University on Saturday (Sept. 16).

The Broncs and Lady Broncs will follow up a solid performance at the Bear Relays where the unconventional relay format allowed both teams to get their feet wet and prepare for the season ahead. The lessons learned at the Bear Relays should make the teams stronger for the competition this weekend.

The tandem of Juan Davila (Donna, TX/Donna H.S.) and Angel Ramirez (Mission, TX/Mission H.S.) are coming off a ninth-place finish at the Bear Relays in which they ran a time of 39:40.52 followed by a pack of Broncs who crossed the finish line in 17th, 18th and 19th-places.

For the Lady Broncs, Karla Hernandez (Edinburg, TX/Edinburg H.S.) and Rose Escovedo (Edinburg, TX/Edinburg North H.S.) led all UTPA teams as they finished in 13th place with a time of 31:20.11 in Waco last week.

"We learned how to compete under the adversity of being tired. We have a lot of work to do, and we learned the importance of staying hydrated," said assistant track and field/ cross country coach Brian Cunningham.

The Texas A&M Invitational will be a standard format (men's - 8,000 meters/women's - 5,000 meters) race in which the top-five runners' finishes will be calculated to determine the winning teams. Without front runner Luis Nava (La Joya, TX/La Joya H.S.), the men's team will rely on their strength in numbers to be competitive.

"I would like to see our front four or five packed up pretty well. We are trying to maximize our point scoring," said Cunningham.

The Lady Broncs will follow the same strategy, but unlike the Broncs, their veteran team has plenty of experience with this philosophy of team running.

"They do a very good job of packing up. They did a great job of it last year, and now it's a matter of moving our pack forward," added Cunningham.

The wet weather should continue on through the weekend, but the thirty-percent chance of rain expected at College Station, TX, shouldn't slow down the UTPA runners who have been practicing in the soggy terrain all week.

"The course we will be running on drains better than what we run on down here. Cross country runners run rain or shine, and as long as there's no lighting we'll be fine," said Cunningham.

The Texas A&M Invitational will include teams from the Southland Conference, Conference USA, the Big 12 Conference, and the Mountain West Conference. The Southland Conference will be well-represented in College Station by Sam Houston State, Stephen F. Austin, University of Texas-Arlington and Texas State. The Big 12 Conference will field two teams in the University of Texas and Texas A&M while Conference USA will also have two representatives in the University of Houston and SMU. The competition is rounded out by newly-added Mountain West team TCU.

The Texas A&M Invitational will be held at the Penberthy Intramural Fields in College Station, TX. Start time for the event will be 7:45a.m. on Saturday (Sept. 16) for the men's race followed by the women's race at 8:30a.m.

UTPA Sports Information