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Cross country running up rankings

Junior Pat Sovacool is leading the charge through the first two meets of the season, winning both of his races. Miami is currently ranked 9th in the Great Lakes Region.
Junior Pat Sovacool is leading the charge through the first two meets of the season, winning both of his races. Miami is currently ranked 9th in the Great Lakes Region.

Erika Hadley

Junior Pat Sovacool is leading the charge through the first two meets of the season, winning both of his races. Miami is currently ranked 9th in the Great Lakes Region.

Behind junior Pat Sovacool, the Miami University men's cross country team has picked up the pace. Still early in the season, the team is ranked 9th in the Great Lakes Region. Miami will run its third meet of the season Saturday in the George Mason Invitational in Virginia.

"Within our region, we've always been one of the better teams, and we're always looking at those front end region teams as people we want to line up with and compete with," Head Coach Warren Mandrell said. "Our goal all the time is to be the best team we can be."

This goal is comprised of several levels, according to Mandrell. The first level lies within the Mid-American Conference itself.

"Our long-term goal at any time is to be one of the top three or four teams in the MAC, and on any given day you roll the dice and see what happens," Mandrell said. "Any team in the top three has a legitimate chance of winning so we want to make sure we're one of those teams."

At the regional level, the team has already improved its ranking-going from 14th last fall to ninth this season.

Finally, there is hushed talk of a potential chance for the RedHawks to run in the NCAA Championships.

"We've made it into the top 25 nationally four times in the last 11 years," Mandrell said. "As team sports go, cross country is one of the most difficult to qualify for nationally because there are so many Division-I teams."

Sovacool, who broke a meet record this season at the Dayton Flyer 5K Challenge with a 15:02 time, and has been named MAC Runner of the Week for the weeks of Sept. 4 and Sept. 11, thinks there may be a chance.

"It's hard to come out and say that we could go to nationals because it's so competitive, anything at any time can happen," he said. "But I think that this is our best shot to qualify as a team since I've been here. This year we have a solid pack of guys and everybody wants it."

In terms of eligibility the team is young-15 of 17 runners are only in their sophomore year of eligibility, and the team is finishing strong in races due to good leadership from talented upperclassmen and from the ambitious and hardworking underclassmen, Sovacool added.

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"A lot of times, the freshmen come in and struggle because they've never run in as competitive of an environment as this," Sovacool said. "But this year we have at least three or four guys who it seems are going to be solid contributors, so it's nice."

Mandrell echoed Sovacool, saying that the young team is hardly running like a bunch of freshmen.

"We've had a pretty good mix this year," Mandrell said. "We've had scorers across the spectrum. We are very young eligibility-wise, but still a pretty darn good team."

Indeed, the team's collective talent was showcased in the Great American Legends Race against Purdue Sept. 7. The RedHawks swept the top nine places, including Sovacool's second consecutive first place finish, including second and third place finishes by Kevin Silver and Brad Untrauer.

Sovacool, whose first win of the season came when he placed first in the Dayton Flyer 5K Challenge, has been in a comfortable groove so far this season and is taking each race one at a time.

"You just take it mile by mile when you're racing," he said. "Start at a comfortable pace and see how you're feeling a little farther in."

Breaking the Dayton Flyer 5K Challenge was an unplanned accomplishment for Sovacool.

"I remember looking at the time and thinking it would be cool to break a

record, but I never went out with the specific intention of doing that," Sovacool said. "There's a kid from Dayton who I wanted to beat, and a mile and a half in I was feeling good so I tried to drop it and wound up winning it pretty easily, I guess. Breaking the record just happened."

All in all, things seem to be going in the 'Hawks' favor this season, and they don't plan on slowing down anytime soon.

"We're kind of a dark horse this year and we want to work hard and keep ramping it up," Sovacool said.

Also, the teams' true potential may still have yet to be shown.

"We've gone to some meets that don't necessarily have the top competition," Sovacool said. "So we've done really well but I don't think we've been tested very much. But we're pleased with what we've got going. All in all, I think we have a pretty legitimate shot at doing some pretty cool stuff."