HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — The UWA cross country teams competed in the GSC championships in Huntsville, Alabama on October 14^th. In the midst of a rebuilding season, the harriers were looking to improve upon their conference performance last season. The men’s team made substantial progress by scoring 194 points, compared to 299 in the 2005 meet.

Head coach Don Medeiros noted, “A 104 improvement is a sizable one in a single year. That averages out to an improvement of about 20 places per runner. In addition, we defeated two teams  and came close to beating a third."

“Overall, I think we had a good meet. The middle of our pack struggled a bit in this race. We have had some respiratory ‘bug’ making its way through our teams and I think that hurt us a bit this weekend. Still, in all, we definitely showed signs of improvement over last year. I think our runners will get healthy this week. That along with a full taper should leave us ready for one more really good race at the NCAA South Regional."

Once again, freshman Alex Brown (Tupelo HS) led the way for the Tigers. He finished 14^th in the race, earning Second-Team All-GSC honors along the way. “I can’t say enough good things about Alex. He has been our bell cow all season long. He defeated some very good runners in this race. His 14^th place finish and his 27:13 are the best ever by a UWA runner in the GSC Championship Meet. We are very proud of him."

Freshmen Jeremy Wilson (Hewitt-Trussville HS) and Craig Warlick (Daphne HS) were the next finishers for the UWA squad. Wilson finished in 42^nd place covering the 8000m course in 29:11.

“This definitely was not Jeremy’s best race.  He struggled a lot in the middle of the race and lost a lot of ground. He finished strong and made up some lost ground which was good to see. Craig had one of our best runs of the day. With our pace struggling, he stepped up big and took up a lot of the slack. His 43^rd place finish was his best race of the year and it was great to see him out there competing. He was unable to train this summer due to an injury and is just now starting to get into good condition. When he signed with us last spring, I figured him to be one of our top runners and he is starting to justify that confidence."

Junior Daniel Ross (Wallace State – Hanceville) and senior Randy Putman rounded out the scoring for the Tigers. Ross finished in 47^th place with a time of 28:43 and was closely followed by Putman, just tenths of a second behind in 36^th place.

“Both Danny and Randy had tough races. They weren’t able to stay with our pack and that cost us some points. I think that the illness making its way through our team hurt them some. If we are going to have a solid regional race in two weeks, both of them are going to have to run closer to their ability levels."

The women’s team did not experience the success of the men. They finished in 15^th place with freshman ReShai Reeves leading the UWA runners with a 70^th place finish in 22:16.

“Shai is a very talented runner with a bright future at UWA. She did not run up to par in this meet and I know she is disappointed in her race."

Freshman Debbie Shisler crossed the finish line 23:35, good enough for 83^rd place. Junior Brittany Berry had a time of 23:45, good enough for 84^th place. Senior Jill Gibbs and freshman Brittany Otter completed the scoring for UWA with 87^th and 96^th place finishes in 24:43 and 28:41 respectively.

“Jill has been ill for a couple of weeks and was not really anywhere near full strength on Saturday. Brittany has been bothered by a hamstring injury all season long and has never been able to really train or race at full speed the whole season. She showed a lot of courage in finishing this race even though she was in a lot of pain."

Both teams race again in two weeks at the NCAA South Regional meet at Plough Park in Memphis, Tenn. 

“We are going to continue to train and fine tune for this last big meet. We want to improve our performances over those in the conference meet and finish the season in strong fashion to set the tone for our upcoming track season. We also want to beat a couple of the teams that edged us out at conference."