David Rooney and Tinette Burger led McNeese State in cross country meets in two different areas of the country on Saturday, Rooney putting himself into the premier running ranks in the USA.
The Cowboy junior finished 11th in the pre-nationals meet in Terre Haute, IN, posting a 23:55.3 clocking for the 8K race. That was only 39 seconds in back of first place Chris Derrick of No. 1 ranked Stanford. The race was run on the same course on which the NCAA championship meet will be held next month. Burger led the Cowgirls in the Arkansas Chile Pepper 6K race in Fayetteville, posting a 18:21.9 effort for 48th place. Team wise, the Cowboys finished 21st at the pre-nationals on the campus of Indiana State with 566 points while the Cowgirls scored 446 points and placed 12th on the campus of the Univ. of Arkansas "It was a good race for the men," head coach Brendon Gilroy said. "We ran with some higher level teams and we beat our share. I thought that David ran a really good race." Joshua Sawe finished 43rd for the Cowboys at 24:25.5 while Jarrett LeBlanc was 119th at 25:03.3, Johnathan Koenck 177th at 25:46.9, Jordan Neil 216th with 26:39.6, Abdi Hassan 222nd with 27:01 and Edwin Koenck 230th at 27:57.2. Stanford had the first three finishers in the meet and scored 43 points to take the title. In Fayetteville, the Cowgirls got a 73rd place from Alvy Carragher (18:11.33), 78th from Amy Guinn (18:17:37), 104th from Fionnula Ross (18:33.77), 151st from Aisling Casey (18:56.90), 179th from Geogia Ball (19:11.41) and 266th from Carly Thurman (20:27.19). Next up for both teams will be the Southland Conference championship meet Oct. 28 in Beaumont, TX