On Friday, unranked Texas men’s cross-country placed fourth in its debut SEC Cross Country Championships in College Station. The Longhorns finished behind No. 3 Arkansas, No. 11 Alabama and Ole Miss in the team standings.
The 8K race included 126 total runners and each of the 14 participating programs had either nine or 10 competitors. The top five from each team earned points that contributed to the overall team score. For Texas, senior Isaac Alonzo (7), junior Nathanael Berhane (29), senior Logan Patete (33), junior Emmanuel Sgouros (37) and junior Hudson Heikkinen (52) contributed to the 152 point total.
Sophomore Jack Boyd (70) and freshman Adam Burlison (75) were the sixth and seventh finishers for the Longhorns, while sophomore Luis Pastor and senior Nigusom Knight also ran for Texas.
Alonzo ran a new personal best just under two weeks after setting one in the Wisconsin Pre-Nationals and earned first-team All-SEC honors for his seventh-place finish. Berhane, Patete, Heikkinen and Burlison all also set new 8K personal bests in College Station.
Arkansas, Alabama and Ole Miss finished with 38, 52 and 122 points, respectively. Behind Texas, Missouri (163) and Tennessee (169) rounded out the top six.
With Texas and Texas A&M both competing, the Cotton Holdings Lone Star Showdown trophy was on the line. Texas finished ahead of A&M in both men’s and women’s, giving them the first cross country Lone Star Showdown win in SEC competition.
The SEC Championships were the first 2024 postseason race for the Longhorns. The team concluded its regular season on Oct. 19 in Madison, Wisconsin. Competing in the Pre-Nationals Men’s “A” Race, Texas finished 27th out of 32 competing schools, tallying 687 points from its top five runners in the race. Ranked No. 29 in the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association national coaches’ poll before the Pre-Nationals, the Longhorns dropped out of the rankings following the race.
The next postseason race for Texas is the NCAA South Central Regionals, also in College Station on Nov. 15. The top two finishing teams in this race automatically qualify for the NCAA Championships on Nov. 23 in Madison. The third-place team gets the chance for an at-large selection.
In the most recent USTFCCCA regional rankings, Texas is ranked third in the South Central region behind Arkansas and Tulane.
The NCAA Regionals are the final 8K race for Texas men’s cross country this season, as the NCAA Championships is a 10K race. A total of 31 teams, along with 38 separate individual runners, qualify for the NCAA Championships. In the coming weeks, Texas will look to be one of them and compete amongst the best men’s cross country programs in collegiate athletics.
