Florida Gators
NCAA Championships
Men's Cross Country Finishes 23rd at NCAA Championships
Monday, November 21, 2005 | Cross Country
The University of Florida men's cross country team finished 23rd of 31 teams at the NCAA Cross Country Championships in Terre Haute, Ind. Monday afternoon. The Gators 23rd place finish was not as high as they were hoping for, but was a four place improvement from a year ago.
Florida, who made the trip to the championship in consecutive years for the first time in school history finished with 520 points. Wisconsin won the men's race with 37 points. Southeastern Conference foe Arkansas finished second with 105 points.
“Nobody is happy with our finish today,” head coach Jeff Pigg said. “We have done well all year, but this is not where we wanted to finish. All the guys put in a solid effort, they ran hard, but this not the result we were looking for. If each guy runs 15 seconds faster it would improve our team standings a lot.”
For the first time all season Florida had a new top finisher, as freshman Jeremy Criscione (Interlachen, Fla.) ran a career-best 10K time of 31:01.5 to finish 112th overall. Criscione's time was the fastest by a Gator individual at the NCAA Championships since 1990. Sophomore Henok Lechebo (Toronto, Canada) finished second for the Gators and 127th overall with a time of 31:13.0. Sophomore Steven Hassen (Ocala, Fla.) finished third for Florida with a time of 31:17.0, good enough for 137th overall. Junior Daniel Parker (Orlando, Fla.) ran 31:22.5 to finish 142nd overall and 4th four the Gators. Junior Jeremy Miller (West Palm Beach, Fla.) rounded out the scoring for Florida with a career-best time of 31:30.7 to finish in 160th place overall. Junior Ryder Leary (Yulee, Fla.) and sophomore Enoch Nadler (Keystone Heights, Fla.) were Florida's sixth and seventh runners finishing in 201st and 214th places with times of 31:55.4 and 32:05.3.
“Jeremy Criscione did a great job,” Pigg said. “Our one, three, four and five guys weren't here last year and they did a solid job. If Henok had done his thing and ran with the guys he had been running with all year, we would have placed a little higher. To place high in this race you have to have a guy finish in the top 50. We just didn't have that today. The good news is we return this whole team for next year. This is a sport where maturity makes a big difference, so I expect us to do better next year. Right now we are going to get ready for track."
The individual champion was Simon Bairu of Wisconsin with a time of 29:15.9.
Team Results
1. Wisconsin, 37
2. Arkansas, 105
3. Notre Dame, 178
4. Iona, 205
5. Colorado, 222
6. Stanford, 231
7. Texas, 272
8. Oklahoma State, 355
9. Portland, 372
10. Arizona, 384
11. Ohio State, 406
12. Kansas, 412
13. BYU, 416
14. Texas-El Paso, 418
15. Dartmouth, 426
16. Georgetown, 440
17. Arizona State, 465
18. Florida State, 471
19. Iowa, 495
20. Minnesota, 514
21. Alabama, 516
22. William & Mary, 518
23. Florida, 520
24. Eastern Michigan, 525
25. Butler, 531
26. Virginia, 550
27. Washington, 556
28. Tennessee, 604
29. Indiana, 617
30. American, 699
31. Loyola, 856
Florida Finishers
112. Jeremy Criscione, 31:01.5
127. Henok Lechebo, 31:13.0
132. Steven Hassen, 31:17.9
142. Daniel Parker, 31:22.5
160. Jeremy Miller, 31:30.7
201. Ryder Leary, 31:55.4
214. Enoch Nadler, 32:05.3
