Sept. 28, 2007

The University of Texas-Pan American men's and women's cross country team will compete in their fourth meet of the season when they travel to Corpus Christi, TX for the 7th Annual Splash Invitational hosted by Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Saturday (Sept. 28).

The Lady Broncs are coming off a fifth place performance at the Texas A&M Invitational where once again Carolina Izaguirre (Brownsville, TX/Hanna H.S.) was the leader of the pack as she placed 25th overall with a time of 19:09 in the 5,000-meter race.

"It was a great accomplishment for the women to place in the top five this past weekend," said head men's and women's cross country coach Dennis Darling. "They felt good about themselves after they place above 12 teams. I expect them to compete strong and have a good performance on Saturday."

After three meets, UTPA moved from 13th to 9th in the recent 2007 Division I Women's Cross Country Regional Rankings. The Lady Broncs rank above TCU, Texas Arlington, UTSA, Stephen F. Austin, Texas State and Sam Houston State.

The Broncs will look to be one of the top three teams this week after a disappointing sixth place finish at the Texas A&M Invitational. UTPA will run without newcomer Angel M. Ramirez (McAllen,TX/McAllen H.S.) as he is still out nursing an injury.

"I think the men are going to be very competitive this weekend. This is a much smaller meet than last weeks, so I think we should be one of the top teams. We should be in the top-three despite Angel being out of the lineup," Darling said.

Junior Luis Nava (La, Joya, TX/La Joya H.S.) continues to find his stride as he collected seventh place laurels including his third top-10 finish of the season.

"Luis has being doing a wonderful job. He's running with a lot of confidence. Now that he can see that he can run with some of the best guys in the nation, I think he's going to great this weekend," concluded Darling.

The Broncs will be matched up against one of the top runners in the South Central Region in Shadrack Songok of Texas A&M Corpus Christi who recently was named Southland Conference Men's Athlete of the Week in cross country. Songok received the honor after claiming the top spot at the 33rd Rice Invitational in a time of 16:58.73 in the 5.4K.

The field of teams will include Sam Houston State, Central Arkansas, Stephen F. Austin, Prairie View A&M, University of Houston, Texas A&M-Kingsville, Texas A&M-International, St. Mary's, Concordia, Palo Alto and Monterrey Tech while Texas will send a women's team and Rice just a men's team.

The 7th Annual Islander Splash Invitational will be held at West Guth Park in Corpus Christi, TX on Saturday (Sept. 27). Start time for the event will be 7:45 a.m. for the men's race followed by the women's race at 8:30 a.m.

South Central Region
Week 1 - Sept. 24
1. Arkansas
2. Baylor
3. Rice
4. Texas
5. Texas A&M
6. Lamar
7. Texas A&M-Corpus Christi
8. UALR
9. UTPA
10. TCU
11. Texas Arlington
12. UTSA
13. Stephen F. Austin
14. Texas State
15. Sam Houston State

UTPA Sports Information