November 22, 2008
Eagles finish 15th at nationals,
Phillips earns All-America honors
Complete Results;
USI Results Only
SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa.—University of Southern Indiana senior Bryan Phillips (Kokomo, Indiana) became the 13th student-athlete in school history to earn All-America honors in men's cross country with his 39th-place finish at the NCAA II National Championships Saturday.
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Bryan Phillips |
Phillips led the Screaming Eagles, who finished 15th as a team with 353 team points, by making a huge jump from the beginning of the race to the 10k finish.
"I think Bryan was about 58th at the 6k-point in the race," Head Coach
Mike Hillyard said. "He really hammered out the last 4k to earn All-America honors."
More impressively was that Phillips was in 81st place a mile into the race before pushing up 42 spots to finish with a 10k-time of 32 minutes, 16.00 seconds.
As a team, the Eagles were in 20th a mile into the race, but moved up five spots throughout the next two miles to close the gap on the leaders. USI moved up to 14th at the five-mile mark before settling for its 15th-place finish.
"We might have gone out a little too conservative to start the race, but did a good job of moving forward from where we were early in the race," Hillyard said. "I thought we did the best job we could when you consider the weather conditions."
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Brendan Devine |
In addition to Phillips' big move, the Eagles also got a big boost from freshman
Brendan Devine (Bethel, New York). Devine jumped 22 spots from the one-mile marker to finish 60th with a time of 32 minutes, 38.00 seconds.
"The most encouraging thing is that our number two, three, and four runners are all true freshmen," Hillyard said.
Freshman
Dustin Emerick (Elmwood, Illinois), the GLVC Freshman of the Year and USI's top runner throughout much of the regular season, finished 94th, while freshman
Kiel Lovekin (LaPorte, Indiana) finished 95th despite running a 5k time trial earlier in the week. Lovekin was a late addition to the Eagles' lineup Saturday.
Senior
Robert Roads (Terre Haute, Indiana) finished 127th, while junior
Brandon Campbell (Portage, Indiana) and sophomore
Andrew Dixon (Petersburg, Indiana) were 142nd and 171st, respectively, to round out USI's lineup.
Adams State College picked up the team title with 67 points, while California State University, Chico's Scott Bauhs was the individual medalist.
Dan McDonnell,
USI Sports Information
