October 5, 2009

Cowley men have streak end as they place third at OSU Jamboree

Having won the Small College portion of the Oklahoma State University Jamboree each of the past two seasons, the Cowley College men’s team was looking to make it three in a row Saturday in Stillwater, OK. Despite a valiant effort, the Tigers reign as meet champions came to an end as they placed third behind runner-up Colorado College and meet champion Eastern New Mexico University.

Former Tiger runner Gilbert Manzanares is a current member of the Eastern New Mexico University cross country team, while another former Cowley runner, Mike Harney, is an assistant coach with the Greyhounds.

Despite the third place finish, the Tiger runners ran faster times than last year’s team did at the meet.

“When I first saw the team scores I was disappointed, but we actually ran faster than we did last year and did better than I thought,” Cowley head coach Vince DeGrado said.

The Tigers had four runners place among the top-29 finishers. Sophomore Dustin Mettler led the way as he placed 16th with a time of 26:04.80,  Josh Gracia (26:10.60) placed 19th, while Brice Irving (26:25.10) and Phillip Banowetz (26:29.80) placed 26th and 29th, respectively.

Mettler’s time was 40 seconds faster than his time on the course a year ago, while Salinas ran nearly one minute faster. Irving’s time was more than a minute improvement than his time from a year ago, and Phillip Banowetz ran nearly two minutes better than last year’s time.

“We look at their times and see we are on the right track,” DeGrado said. “This provided our guys with some great competition and the chance to run on a hard course. We just got beat by a couple of four-year schools that out-pointed us.”

New Mexico Highlands runner, Nicaise Kazingo, won the men’s five-mile race with a time of 25:00.20.
Cowley will now prepare to compete at the Johnson County Invite Saturday in Overland Park. The men’s race will begin at 11:30 a.m.

The Tigers do not plan on running everybody at the meet as DeGrado expects to give some of the runners a break heading into the conference/region meet held Oct. 24 on the Johnson County course.

“This will serve as a good opportunity to see the conference course,” DeGrado said.

Cowley results:
(16) Dustin Mettler, 26:04.80; (19) Josh Gracia, 26:10.60; (26) Brice Irving, 26:25.10; (29) Phillip Banowetz, 26:29.80; (48) Isbek Salinas, 26:56.80; (54) Abdesalam Ali, 27:03.10; (65) Tyson Christenen, 27:13.90; (72) Cianin Kutil, 27:20.30; (90) T.J. Mapp, 27:38.20; (130) Colin Jokisch, 28:28.10; (162) Alstin Benton, 29:12.60; (163) Peter Onelio, 29:13.90; (187) Zach Reynolds, 30:07.70; (191) Kyle Swinicki, 30:22.30.

Top-10 team scores: (1) Eastern New Mexico, 100; (2) Colorado College, 106; (3) Cowley, 118; (4) New Mexico Highlands, 168; (5) Wayland Baptist, 196; (6) Lubbock Christian, 208; (7tie) Kansas Wesleyan, 212; (7tie) Incarnate Word, 212; (9) Southwestern, 219; (10) Butler, 240.