Sept. 7, 2005

SAN MARCOS - The Bobcat Cross Country team opened its season with a partial squad practice meet at Trinity University hosted by UTSA last Friday, September 2.

Athletes competed on a one-mile loop course in teams of two. Each relay member alternated miles until each female completed three loops and each male completed five loops. Both the men and women had three teams each.

The Bobcats finished behind Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and UTSA in the final point totals. Despite the finish, Coach Grigori Viniar was pleased with the teams' efforts.

"Winning the meet was not important to us," said Viniar, "I asked the runners to begin at an easy pace and get faster with each mile so that they finished strong." "The athletes did a marvelous job and most of them had negative splits each mile, so they did exactly what I wanted them to do."

In fact, the men's relays actually ran their final mile faster than the teams from UTSA and A&M-CC ran their first miles.

The `Cats will take a full contingent of athletes to Texas A&M this weekend to open their racing season. Several outstanding freshmen and transfers will make their debuts this weekend.

The men's team includes 2005 high school state finalists Alex Escontrias, Brett Shepard, Francisco Avelar, Roel Elizalde and Sam Houston transfer Frankie Flores. In addition, veterans Paulo Sosa, Javier Prado and Paul Archer will complete the squad.

For the women, sophomores Kirby West, Tenley Determan, Stephanie Flores, Claudia Vera, Brittany Rosen and Marina Andruzzi will be joined by freshman Kristina Viniar. This will be the first race for each this season.

Coaches Viniar and Greg Zarate will use the weekend to understand where the athletes stand in comparison to other Division I runners.

"We are excited about this weekend and will use it as our first test of where we are right now," Zarate said, "The athletes are very excited to race and show us what they have."