Oct. 31, 2008
AUBURN -
The No. 11 Auburn men's and women's cross country teams hit postseason action with the Southeastern Conference Championship Monday at the Mississippi State Cross Country Course in Starkville, Miss. The women's 6K will start at 10 a.m., followed by the men's 8K at 11 a.m.
"Both teams are healthy and ready to go," head coach Peter Watson said. "Training has been great and we are excited to race. Our guys have very high goals and we would love to win an SEC title. It should be a very good men's race with four nationally ranked teams in the field.
"Our women are going in and we want to be better than last year's sixth-place finish," Watson said. "Holly Knight will line up and see if she can get an SEC individual title. Laurel Pritchard, Amber Riley and Sabrina Fischer are going to try and earn all SEC honors. Sabrina was just outside this last year and I know she wants it this year."
The SEC has four men's teams ranked in the USTFCCCA Cross Country national poll in No. 5 Alabama, No. 11 Auburn, No. 26 Arkansas and No. 28 Florida. On the women's side, there are only two teams currently ranked in No. 13 Arkansas and No. 14 Florida.
Heading into the SEC Championship, Felix Kiboiywo has the second-fastest 8K time 23:35.5. He is five seconds back from the league leading time of 23:30.10 held by Tyson David of Alabama. Girma Mecheso and Elkanah Kibet are also among the SEC's 10 fastest at third and sixth, respectively.
Knight owns the fastest 6K in the SEC with a 20:13.40 and has an 11-second advantage over the second-fastest time from Tennessee's Sarah Bowman.
In 2007, Auburn's men and women each placed sixth at the league championships. Leading the way for the Tigers were Kiboiywo, who placed sixth and Knight, who placed 11th.
Auburn's men and women have combined for 13 individual SEC titles. Angela Homan was the last Tiger to earn a SEC title, winning her third straight in 2005. She is the only Auburn female runner to win a conference title. The last male runner to win an individual crown was Brian Abshire in 1985.
The men's program owns six SEC team titles since the conference championship was established in 1935, although the last came nearly 30 years ago in 1980. Auburn's women have not won a conference team title since the conference started having women's races in 1983. In 1995, Auburn's women finished runner-up for its highest conference finish.