FAYETTEVILLE — Arkansas’ women’s teams gave local fans something to cheer about Saturday morning at the Chile Pepper Cross Country Festival.
The No. 11 Razorbacks won the 6,000-meter race with 58 points, well in front of runner-up Oklahoma State’s 103. Arkansas’ top finisher was senior Semehar Tesfaye, who finished fifth in 21 minutes, 6.4 seconds despite losing ground and time when she took a wrong turn midway through the race.
The Razorbacks’ victory was Arkansas’ lone highlight because of the absence of the men’s team’s top 10 runners, who competed in a major inter-regional meet Friday in Wisconsin. The Arkansas men ran a B team Saturday that finished last, in 34th place, with 953 points.
No. 2 Oklahoma State won the men’s 10K race with 20 points and had runners finish second through sixth. Texas Tech’s Kennedy Kithuka won the men’s individual title in 28:53.
Tesfaye, a transfer from Iowa State, took the lead early in the women’s race, which is not her normal strategy. It ended up costing her, although not in the way she might have anticipated.
When runners circled past the starting area, Tesfaye veered left inside a fence separating the course from the starting line. She was eventually waved down and had to retrace her path to get back on the racing course.
The damage was done as she was unable to mount a challenge to eventual winner Jess Engel of Oklahoma, who won in 20:42.1.
Arkansas women’s Coach Lance Harter was able to laugh off the mistake, but Tesfaye was less amused.
“I wish it didn’t happen,” Tesfaye said. “I would have liked to see how I could have finished the race. I’m not normally a strong finisher.
“I didn’t have a lot of time to think. I won’t make that mistake again.”
Harter certainly hopes not because the Razorbacks will host the NCAA South Central Regional on Nov. 9 when the stakes will be considerably higher. The top two teams from that meet automatically qualify for the NCAA meet.
“We had a little misdirection on our home course,” Harter said. “Hopefully, we have that squared away by the regional meet.”
Harter said he was pleased with the way his team ran. Tesfaye has been the Razorbacks’ top runner in two meets so her performance was expected, but he was worried when several runners became ill overnight.
Freshman Andrina Schlapfer finished 10th in 21:15.1 and sophomore Grace Heymsfield was 12th in 21:20.5. Paige Johnston (17th) and Jessica Kamilos (19th) rounded out Arkansas’ scorers.
“It’s a credit to our depth and our team atmosphere,” Harter said. “We had some people run above and beyond the call of duty. That’s exciting.”
Arkansas men’s Coach Chris Bucknam saw his decision to run his ‘A’ team in Wisconsin pay off when the No. 19 Razorbacks finished fifth in a meet that included 11 top-20 teams. Arkansas failed to make the NCAA field last year for the first time since 1973 because it had a poor strength of schedule after not running in inter-regional meets.
The Razorbacks will automatically qualify with a top-two finish in the regional meet, but the strong performance Friday in Wisconsin gives Arkansas a little insurance in case it doesn’t. Last year, Arkansas was third in the region and failed to get an at-large bid to the national meet.
“It validated why we went up there,” Bucknam said. “That was an outstanding meet. It was a good meet for us. There is a big upside to our team, and it was a good environment for our kids to be in.”
The decision to run in Wisconsin meant that Arkansas wouldn’t be competitive at the Chile Pepper. The Razorbacks’ best finisher was Archie Robertson, who finished 63rd in 32:40.2. The last four Razorbacks finished 221 through 224, the last four spots in the field as they used the race as a training run.
Sports, Pages 26 on 10/14/2012