Allen Community College Red Devil runners owned their home course Friday. In the second annual duals meet, now ACC King’s Sandwich Duals, the Allen cross country teams dominated in the first race of the 2012 season.
Starting the season in a shortened distance gave the Red Devils along with other teams a good tune-up for the college cross country season. In college, women run a 5-kilometer race and the men go a full 8K distance. On Friday, the Allen races were two miles and three miles.
With three teams running in the women’s competition, Allen placed seven runners in the top 10, winning with 15 points. Hesston finished second with 53 points and Coffeyville was third with 67 points.
Gabby Ruiz won the women’s race for the second year in a row in 12 minutes, 10.99 seconds. Allen runners went to the front of the pack from the starting gun and never backed off.
Danae McGee ran second with a time of 12:14.81 followed by Tsianina Whitetree in 12:35.61. Debra Kime placed fourth in 12:52.52, with Kim Boyle crossing in fifth place in 12:59.80.
“I wasn’t surprised much by the front three on the team. I kind of expected that, however I wasn’t so sure we’d perfect score the meet let alone make it look fairly easy,” said Vince DeGrado, ACC head coach.
Emily Steimel was eighth in 13:21.10 and Kim Cooper finished 10th in 13:33.88. Sydney Owens was 16th in 14:44.37 and Bianca Ramirez placed 19th in 14:58.89. Mahalia Soap ran unattached, finishing 17th in 14:51.19.
DeGrado said Ruiz, McGee and Whitetree looked comfortable and at ease throughout. He said he was pleased with the performances of Kime, Boyle and Steimel and “I believe they will only get better with each week of training.”
On the men’s side, there were five teams and going head-to-head with each of the other four, Allen won the duals.
“This was a great start for us competition-wise. It’s a meet that isn’t too big but not too small where we can’t get some confidence going into next week’s meet,” DeGrado said of the ACC men. “We closed very strong as a team, which was something we didn’t do well last year.”
Overall, Allen scored 22 points for first place, followed by Highland with 67 points, Coffeyville with 78 points, Butler with 83 points and Hesston with 111. Dual scores were: Allen 17, Butler 46; Allen 15, Coffeyville 48; Allen 18, Hesston 45; Allen 17, Highland 44.
Tegan Michael, who finished second a year ago, won the men’s race for Allen in 15:36.17 with teammate Josh Whittaker right behind in 15:37.87. Kyle Schauvliege came in fourth in 15:43.13.
Garrett Colglazier led the second grouping for the Red Devils as he finished seventh in 15:58.61. Evan Adams was eighth in 16:03.86, followed by Brock Artis in ninth at 16:05.93. Jake Spence was 12th in 16:28.30, Ryan Pulsifer placed 15th in 16:38.80, Patrick Rachford was 18th in 16:49.47 and Morgan Tucker was 20th in 16:58.38.
Running unattached were Quentin Fowler and Gerald Christian finishing 31st and 32nd, respectively, in 17:31.44 and 17:38.18.
