Adrian Hernandez/ THE RIDER
The Men’s and Women’s Cross Country teams have begun their season with two women finishing in the top 15 of the University Incarnate Word Invitational Sept. 12 in San Antonio.
Senior Kailey Salazar led the women’s team with a sixth-place finish (17:33) in the 5K, followed by fellow Vaquero Mia Picazo, who finished 10th (17:51) in the same race.
The performance from Salazar led to her cutting over a minute off of her personal-time best and marked the second-fastest 5k run in program history, just behind Dorcas Koech who holds the No. 1 spot of (17:10) back in October 2019.
Junior Maddison Surita took 31st (18:37); junior Daphne Kausz, 51st (20:21); senior N Vanee Anchike, 65th (21:48).
The women’s team finished sixth of 11 in the invitational tallying 163 points.
Salazar said she is dedicated to going above and beyond for her performance, and her goals are to run with no hardship to the best of her ability.
“My goals are to run fearless and do the best to my ability to, hopefully, drop some records,” she said.
Adrian Hernandez/ THE RIDER
Running for Salazar is something she enjoys for the challenge of pushing herself and improving her endurance, but she also applies that skill toward her life.
“Running a long distance for such a long time, and then racing it, too, is definitely challenging,” Salazar said. “So, I feel like being able to push myself and know that I could do all of that, all of those hard things also apply in my life as well.”
The men’s team ran the 8K.
In his first collegiate race, freshman Brock Morales set the example for the Vaqueros with a 26th-place finish (26:51). Behind Morales was senior Kevin Cardenas, who took 60th place (28:04).
The men’s team finished seventh out of 10 in the invitational with 219 points.
Morales said he felt a bit nervous going into his first collegiate race knowing the competition, but in the end found the overall experience great.
“I was a little nervous at first, obviously, being a freshman and going out there, racing with the top guys but I just did my best and went out there and performed,” he said.
According to Morales, having a positive mindset and confidence, despite self doubt, was crucial for his performance and state of mind for the race.
“Mindset was mainly the main thing. I had to go in there feeling strong and to just tell myself that I belong up there with the guys,” Morales said. “Try to be positive and you know being positive doesn’t mean you don’t experience negative thoughts, especially when you’re out there.”
Adrian Hernandez/ THE RIDER
When asked if he had any goals for the season, Morales replied he wanted to be the best of his class athletically and shake up the UTRGV cross country scene.
“I really just want to be the top freshman, break freshmen records and try and put a name for UTRGV,” Morales said. “I wanna make UTRGV a household name.”
The women’s team has one more meet, slated for Oct. 16 in College Station, before the conference championships.
The men’s team will have two chances to prepare for the Southland Conference Championships, first Saturday in Louisiana and then Oct. 16 in College Station.
