Oct. 25, 2007

While the past weekend saw every Southland Conference cross country team taking a break from competition, in no means were its athletes and coaches winding down for the season.

This Saturday, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi will play host to every Southland Conference squad as they all compete in the Conference Championship. The men's 8k race will start at 8 a.m. and the women are scheduled to begin at 8:45 a.m.

In the men's competition, the No. 5 (USTFCCCA South Poll) Islanders are led by junior Shadrack Songok who has followed his All-American winning season in 2006 (finishing 19th at the NCAA nationals and earning the SLC's Runner of the Year award) in impressive fashion. So far this season, Songok has won three races - his most-recent a 29:22 finish (10k course) at the 2007 Chile Pepper Festival on October 13 - and was named Athlete of the Week three times. Senior teammate J.R. Pulido was also a consistent force during the season for AMCC.

Texas State's Roel Elizalde and Michael Richards traded first and second-place team finishes all season long and led the Bobcats to three second-place team finishes. Elizadle also had two honorable mention awards.

On the women's side of the competition, Texas A&M-Corpus Christi goes into the conference championship as the No. 6-ranked team. Leading the way for the Islanders is junior Meghan Lemke, who finished in the top 10 in three of the four races her school competed in. Lemke was also a multiple honorable mention-winner for the Southland Athlete of the Week award. Freshman Sarah De Los Santos also had a good season, finishing in the school's top three every race.

Texas State goes into Saturday's championship ranked 14th and led by sophomore Whitney Perkins and freshman Heather Bullin. Both runners traded first and second place among Bobcat runners throughout the season, the latest at the TLU Bulldog Invitational where Perkins took fourth overall (23:26) and Bullin was right behind (23:30) with a fifth place finish.