Search

ARCHIVES
CONTACT US
WORLD NEWS

Jones, Chaplin win second titles of season

For the third consecutive year, the UA men's and women's cross country teams won the team titles at the San Diego State Aztec Invitational.

Senior Micheil Jones and sophomore Tara Chaplin also won individual titles for the Wildcats.

"Tara is one of the best runners in the country," UA head coach Dave Murray said.

Jones won the men's race on the 8,000-meter course in 25 minutes, 4 seconds improving on his second-place finish at the same meet a year ago. Chaplin, who won her first career title last weekend, claimed her second of the season by finishing 12 seconds ahead of the second-place finisher.

"It was an easy meet," Murray said. "There was some decent competition but nothing like we are going to see at Stanford in two weeks."

The team travels to Palo Alto, Calif. in two weeks to run in the Stanford Invitational.

In this weekend's invitational, the Arizona women edged UCLA 37 points to 40 for the victory, while the men finished ahead of Southern Utah by 31 points.

Erin Doherty, Katrin Engelen, Jennifer Burris and Kimberly Bates scored points for the Wildcat women.

Arizona men finished first, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and ninth. Jones was followed by David Lopez, Steve Smith, Tom Prindiville, Brent Pederson and Mike Cramer.

Rick Weis, Jeremy Lyon and Wade Juntunen also scored points for the men.

Jones has now won the first two races this season.

"He's really developed into our team leader from the standpoint of being our number one runner," Murray said. "He's outclassed the field in both of his first races.

"He's stepped up his training in terms of mileage, he's dedicated to his running and he's taken it upon himself to be the leader of this team."