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Tiger men win cross country meet

10/12/2008

By CONOR NICHOLL

cnicholl@dailynews.net

Tiger cross country coach Jason McCullough quoted Green Bay Packers' legendary football coach Vince Lombardi after Fort Hays State University's annual FHSU Open on Saturday, saying, "Winning is a habit, but so is losing."

The words are an apt description for McCullough's two squads. For the second time this season (and the second time in the four-year McCullough era) the Fort Hays men won a major meet.

The Tigers, two weeks away from collecting the Oklahoma Baptist Invitational team title, captured the team championship Saturday with 35 points, 12 fewer than Garden City Community College, a top-10 junior college program.

The women, who also took first at Oklahoma Baptist, finished with 42 points, five behind Div. I University of Northern Colorado. Neither team had finished better than third at the FHSU Open since 2005.

"You have to get in the habit of winning," McCullough said. "You can get in the habit of running fast, but that doesn't always translate into winning. Now, we are starting to get into the habit of winning and finishing well at meets. That is really what I am looking for."

The race was the team's final tuneup before the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association meet on Oct. 25 in Warrensburg, Mo.

"They are really confident heading into conference and really motivated because we are ranked very low," McCullough said.

The Tiger men and women are each considered among the contenders for the conference title.

"We feel like we are the best MIAA team," sophomore Cole Ginther said. "Most teams, I think do. We are ranked really low because last year we (were) seventh. Last year, we had only one of our top seven running and this year we have got everybody back. Hopefully, come conference we will clean up a little bit."

On the men's side, Fort Hays placed five runners in the top 11 and six in the top 17.

Senior Jay Lindal finished third in 25 minutes, 23 seconds, which was 27 seconds behind Garden City's Mahomed Noor. Senior Aaron Yoder, who won the individual title at Oklahoma Baptist, was fifth (25:10), while Ginther was seventh (25:23), senior Dan Yoder was ninth and senior Elias Diaz finished 11th. The men formed two packs throughout the race, something that McCullough emphasized entering the meet.

"At conference and regionals we are going to need that," Ginther said.

The race, the best all season for Ginther, continued a turnaround. A former high school state champion at Thomas More Prep-Marian, Ginther suffered injuries the last couple years and ran just his third healthy cross country race in the past two seasons.

"He has fought a lot of injuries and a lot of different hardships," McCullough said. "Now he is starting to get the confidence back that he had in high school and I think a little bit has helped him going to smaller meets and finishing so high. Last year we went to such big meets that he maybe ran all right, but he finished so low that he had no confidence. His confidence is gaining every meet."

Ginther suffered a stress fracture in his freshman year of cross country and didn't run at all as a sophomore. This season, he was fourth on the Tigers at the season-opening Texas Tech meet, before he took fifth overall at Oklahoma Baptist.

"It is going good so far," he said. "I wanted to come back, definitely, because this year we have a good team and we can do a lot of good things. That was kind of a motivating factor."

The women also continued their fine season, placing four in the top 10, and defeating seven squads. It's the third top three finish for Fort Hays this fall. Senior Nikki Knowles finished fourth overall (18:47), the third time she has led the Tigers. Junior Ali Mishler was fifth (18:49).

"I really wanted to see them go out a little bit harder and they did," McCullough said. "...To see them to do that, they are going to have to go up fast at conference because there are some girls that go out fast at conference."

Mishler came in several seconds ahead of Knowles at the two-mile mark before Knowles made up the ground on the final mile. Mishler was in sixth until the last 15 meters, where she passed Northern Colorado's Brianna Spletstoser.

"I think we all did really awesome today," Mishler said. "This was a really good day for us. The weather was perfect and was beautiful and we just went out there and took it."

Sophomore Amie Algrim, who had not been top three for the Tigers this fall, was Fort Hays' third-best runner (19:02), a finish that McCullough called "very promising" and Mishler labeled "amazing."

Senior Jackie Jamison finished 10th in 19:12.

"With the way (Amie) had been working out at practice, she had been running with Nikki and Jackie and Ali," McCullough said. "I have been purposely been putting her with them in particular workouts so she would get used to running with them and have the confidence to run with them."

The four runners, plus senior Ashlee Orr, could yield a conference title. Orr, all-MIAA last season, has not run this year because of a foot injury but could run at conference.

"That is five runners that can pack up there pretty tight, McCullough said. "I don't know if anyone else in the conference can have a pack that close."

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