Las Vegas, New Mexico - The New Mexico Highlands cross country teams are in Lubbock, Texas, for Saturday's NCAA Division II South Central Regional Championship at Chaparral Ridge Cross Country Course.
The Women's 6k race will get under way at 9:00 am (MT) while the men's 10k race is slated for a 10:00 am (MT) start.
NMHU has been off since the RMAC Championships two weeks ago when the men, powered by
Andrew Amor's individual championship, finished in 8th place and the women finished 12th.
Reflecting on the women's finish at the RMAC Championship, Head Coach
Bob DeVries said, "Our goal was top ten and we came up just short. We needed a little more from our middle group. Faith (Lovato) put herself in a position for All-RMAC, but fell just short. She'll be ready at Regionals."
Coach DeVries said of the men's finish two weeks ago, "Our team finish is not reflective of our strength. We rested
Mart Nijhuis, our number three runner, and worked on pacing with our number two man
Nathias Rael. We feel good headed to Regionals."
The big story for the Cowboys was the exceptional performance of senior
Andrew Amor who was the RMAC Runner of the Year as a result of his victory in Denver. He finished the 8k course at Washington Park in a time of 23:58.4, nearly 13 seconds faster than the second place finisher.
"Amazing effort by Andrew. He's the toughest competitor I've ever coached," said Coach DeVries.
After the RMAC Championship
Andrew Amor was asked about how that race prepared the team for the NCAA Regionals in Lubbock.
"The RMAC Championships do a great job for setting us up for Regionals as we get to see where we are at and where we can improve for the upcoming races," he said. "For me it helped a lot with confidence and realizing that I can compete with the best runners in Division II cross country and will continue to try to do so. For the rest of the men's and women's teams we all ran really well and I believe if we keep working hard, trusting Coach Devries' phenomenal coaching and improve on a few little things from RMAC we can race super well at Regionals and surprise a lot of people."
Live stream of Saturday's NCAA Division II South Central Regional is available via the Lone Star Network.
Lubbock Christian created a Championship Webpage which has information leading up to Saturday's races and will have results post race. Â
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