After our Aggie Women Cross Country team qualified for nationals last season and for the expected great season our teams are supposed to have, I thought cross country deserves its own thread I thought we'd make a thread so we can discuss the roster, meets, results from meets around the country, other sec teams, other teams in the region, as well as high school cross country!

Schedule
August 30: Cowboy Preview - @Oklahoma State

September 13: Texas A&M Invitational - HOME

September 27: Nuttycombe Invitational - @Wisconsin

October 18: Arturo Barrios - HOME

November 1: SEC Championship - HOME

November 15: NCAA South Central Regional - HOME

November 23: NCAA XC Championship- @Wisconsin

How Collegiate Cross Country Works
So college cross country (xc) is an NCAA fall sport that is distinct from track and field, BUT the scholarships awarded for runners who participate in cross country are within the allotted scholarships given to the track and field team. There is no such thing as a cross country scholarship. Track and cross country scholarships both belong to the scholarship count to an institution's track and field roster! In track and field women have 18 scholarships while the men only have 12.6! So cross country is included within those numbers! Some schools will use a large portion of those scholarships on distance runners while others won't use any at all! There is no data to show how A&M utilizes their scholarships but I know for a fact we do really well with less scholarship money than other schools!

Cross country at this level is a team sport. 5 members make up a scoring team, although 7 can run at the post season meets, while typically more run in the practice meets! So scoring wise, they collect the places from the top 5 runners from each team and add up their places. The team with the lowest score wins! A 15 being a perfect score!

The distance ran varies throughout the season, but ends with a 6k for the women and a 10k for the men at the regional and national meet! There is a regular season which usually includes 3-5 meets, usually starting off with a shorter distance and working up! For us, we will have 4 regular season meets, then conference!

Then after these races, the next one is the regional meet (or the national qualifier). The regional qualifier is one of 9 regional meets across the country! We are located in the south central region with school like Arkansas, tu, LSU, and other schools from these states! At the regional meet, the top 2 teams advance to nationals! Arkansas will always use a lot of scholarships to load up their distance team so overtaking them is difficult, but last year our women finished second and advanced to nationals!

Head Coach: Wendel McRaven
Assistant Coach: Julia Abell

Schedule Link: https://12thman.com/sports/mens-cross-country/schedule

Roster Link: https://12thman.com/sports/mens-cross-country/roster

Name: SAN JUANITA LEAL (SJ)
Class: Freshman
Hometown: Edinburg, Texas
High School: Edinburg North High School
Major: Nutrition

We'll kick this series off with superstar 5 star all American freshman San Juanita Leal, the queen and goat of Rio Grande Valley high school distance running an one of the top distance prospects in the country! I've had the pleasure of watching her race and her tenacity and confidence is rare! I've seen her race against guys and beat most of them down here! She is a 4 time UIL Track and Field 6A State Champion and was undefeated in the 1600/3200 in Texas for 2 years! She was also the 6A runner up in cross country and 4th place in 2022! On why she chose Texas A&M, "Because I really bonded with the coaches and athletes and they really made me feel at home, more than any other school and it's closer to home." She has some insane PR's and I expect her to contribute to our cross country team immediately! She makes us better! She's basically trained solo all of high school or with guys, a great environment like A&M and she'll only flourish! She is a great athlete and great student, she was coached in high school her by her uncle Rene Palacios. She is by far one of the most talented distance athletes we have ever signed and I can't wait to watch what she accomplished in Aggieland.

PR's
800 - 2:08
1500 - 4:28
1600 - 4:42
3000 - 9:14
3200 - 9:50
5k xc - 16:57

Don't worry about Ondrej. I believe he comes from the western part of the country which is the Bohemia part. As full blooded Bohemian myself, I put my full faith in my brother.