Miami Student

Issue date: 9/28/07 Section: Sports

Junior Pat Sovacool is leading the charge through the first two meets of the season, winning both of his races. Miami is currently ranked 9th in the Great Lakes Region.

Behind junior Pat Sovacool, the Miami University men's cross country team has picked up the pace. Still early in the season, the team is ranked 9th in the Great Lakes Region. Miami will run its third meet of the season Saturday in the George Mason Invitational in Virginia.

"Within our region, we've always been one of the better teams, and we're always looking at those front end region teams as people we want to line up with and compete with," Head Coach Warren Mandrell said. "Our goal all the time is to be the best team we can be."

This goal is comprised of several levels, according to Mandrell. The first level lies within the Mid-American Conference itself.

"Our long-term goal at any time is to be one of the top three or four teams in the MAC, and on any given day you roll the dice and see what happens," Mandrell said. "Any team in the top three has a legitimate chance of winning so we want to make sure we're one of those teams."

At the regional level, the team has already improved its ranking-going from 14th last fall to ninth this season.

Finally, there is hushed talk of a potential chance for the RedHawks to run in the NCAA Championships.

"We've made it into the top 25 nationally four times in the last 11 years," Mandrell said. "As team sports go, cross country is one of the most difficult to qualify for nationally because there are so many Division-I teams."

Sovacool, who broke a meet record this season at the Dayton Flyer 5K Challenge with a 15:02 time, and has been named MAC Runner of the Week for the weeks of Sept. 4 and Sept. 11, thinks there may be a chance.

"It's hard to come out and say that we could go to nationals because it's so competitive, anything at any time can happen," he said. "But I think that this is our best shot to qualify as a team since I've been here. This year we have a solid pack of guys and everybody wants it."

In terms of eligibility the team is young-15 of 17 runners are only in their sophomore year of eligibility, and the team is finishing strong in races due to good leadership from talented upperclassmen and from the ambitious and hardworking underclassmen, Sovacool added.

Continued...

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