Nov. 24, 2008
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. -- Senior Pat Sovacool ended his Miami cross country career on Monday with a 65th-place finish at the NCAA Division I National Championship meet. He improved 70 spots from last year when he finished 135th.
A native of Lakewood, Sovacool was just over 90 seconds behind overall winner Galen Rupp of Oregon. The Ducks also won the team title.
Sovacool covered the first 3K of the 10K (6.2-mile) race in 8:51, then reached the halfway point at 14:58. His time was 24:24 after 8,000 meters.
"I was really pleased," Sovacool said. "I knew All-America status (top 40) might have been out of my grasp, but my goal was to be twice as good as last year. It worked out almost exact."
Sovacool admitted that his adrenaline was on high at the start. "I wasn't able to relax until about the mile mark. But I found (Big 12 champion) German Fernandez of Oklahoma State and while I knew I couldn't match him entirely, I was able to settle into a good groove."
For the last 150 meters, he zoned in on runners from Texas and Oregon just slightly ahead and wound up finishing strong.
"I am proud of Pat," Head Coach Warren Mandrell said. "He ran the race he wanted and put himself near All-America status. He finished ahead of everyone from Michigan, Penn State and UCLA, typically strong programs. He was really strong through 7K, but started having to work hard at the end."
Sovacool placed 12th at the Great Lakes Regional two weeks ago, but was the region's sixth-best runner on Monday.
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