-- Unset -- — BOWLING GREEN, Ky. - UALR pulled an upset on Saturday to win the Sun Belt Conference men's Cross Country Championship.
UALR was picked to finish second earlier in the week by Sun Belt Conference coaches. But behind a second-place finish from Ondrej Puskar, the Trojans took the title with 53 points.
Middle Tennessee, the coaches' pick, finished third (76 points) behind North Texas (75 points).
The UALR women finishedsecond behind Western Kentucky.
"I was proud of our teams today," said UALR Coach Milton Williams, who was named the Sun Belt Conference Men's Coach of the Year.
"We have two great teams, and they showed what they can do today."
UALR's men had six runners in the top 20: Puskar (25 minutes, 7.84) secnds, Rex Hamel (sixth, 25:44.76), Vladimir Findra (12th, 26:16.90), Ethan Blakely (16th, 26:28.01), Charlie Cox (17th, 26:30.44) and Derek Allen (19th,26:37.81).
Joining Puskar on the all-conference team is men's champion Michah Tirop from South Alabama, along with UALR's Hamel, Western Kentucky's Bethuel Kiplagat and Cosmas Bor, Middle Tennessee's William Sonock and Isaac Biwott and North Texas' Frank Ngeno.
UALR's Whitney Kerth finished second in the women's race by nine seconds to Western Kentucky's Janet Jesang. Kerth's time was 17:37.83.
UALR's Katraina Lovrantova was fourth with a time of 18:06.55.
Sports, Pages 44 on 10/28/2007