Evans, Sanders lead 'Dogs to nice WAC showing

By Umaymah Rashid
The Collegian

Fresno State hosted its third WAC Cross Country Championship at the rolling hills of Woodward Park in Fresno this weekend.

The park was the scene of the dominating performance by Utah State where their women’s and men’s teams came in first and won team titles.

Nine schools competed in the women’s 5k meet while seven schools competed in the men’s 8k where Fresno State finished fifth and sixth respectively. The women’s team also earned themselves a spot at the 2006 NCAA Regional Championships in Portland, Ore., Nov. 11.

Top runners Zinzi Evans and Frank Sanders placed first within their team, with Evans coming in 12th overall with a time of 18:17 and Sanders coming in 27th with a time of 26:57. Evans set a personal best record with her time and also earned second-team WAC honors.

“I am very excited about the race, I’ve been training since 2003 to get ready for this meet. So I’m very excited, very pleased with what I ran,” Evans said.

Sanders, who is also an 800-meter runner set a personal best time by coming in under his 27:00 goal and was pleased with his performance.

“I felt like I ran my best race that I could,” Sanders said.

Sanders also said that he is very optimistic about the future of his team.

“The majority of our team is freshmen and sophomores, so what I’m looking at right now is that we’ve been out for a while but we’re all really young,” Sanders said. “ So, you give us a little more time and we’re going to be right up there with everyone else.”

Other notable performances came from Meri Hawkins and Alan Williamson who placed second within the team. Hawkins came in 19th overall with a time of 18:35, while Williamson came in 40th overall with a time of 27:55.

Both Hawkins and Williamson were satisfied with their performances.

“I was very surprised with my time, I took a whole minute off, so it was really good,” Hawkins said.

Williamson, who considers himself an expert on the Woodrow course, said he has been running the course since the third grade and was also pleased with his performance.

“I felt like I did really good,” Williamson said. “I went out a little fast but I held on to pace and stayed strong mentally, so I think I did really good.”

Cross Country coach, Joe Gonzales was happy with his team’s performance and said that they accomplished most of their set goals.

“The ladies did outstanding,” Gonzales said. “We had a goal of having five people under 19:00 and we had four under 19:00 and one at 19:03. This was a great competition out here and they ran 10 times better than they did last year, so I’m really proud of them.”

Gonzales was equally satisfied with the men’s performance.

“On the men’s side, just to have the team back was great and Frank Sanders, who is a freshman, breaking 27:00, he did a great job,” Gonzales said.

Evans captured the team’s sentiment regarding the team’s performances.

“I put my whole heart in it and that was all I had, so no regrets.”

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