Two of Loyola’s best athletes are two you may have never heard of.

Matt Cagigal and Richard Bouckaert accounted for six of Loyola’s ten best times in the 8-km. race. Looking back at their accomplished careers, there are the highs and lows. For these two it’s mostly highs, as Bouckaert explains.

“Running under 27 minutes at the Twilight Meet (Memphis, Tenn.) was the biggest highlight for me.”

Bouckaert, history senior, owns the third and sixth fastest times in Loyola history. He finished second in the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference championship meet and fourth in the NAIA Region XIII championship meet. He was named All-GCAC and All-NAIA Region XIII and was invited to the NAIA National Championship Meet three straight years.

The only year he missed out on the national championship race was his freshman year, when he was one second off from qualifying.

Cagigal, finance senior, owns the second, fourth, fifth and tenth fastest times at Loyola. He won the GCAC Individual Champion, NAIA Region XIII Runner-Up, All-NAIA Region XIII and invited to the NAIA National Championships.

They both made the Louisiana Sports Writers Association All-Louisiana team.

Every time they would qualify, they would credit coach Al Seither for helping them improve their performance.

“He’s old school,” Cagigal said. “Out at the Fly, the workouts don’t get any easier, they don’t change. We would be out there till possibly 8 p.m. if we don’t finish what he expects of us.”

They learned much more about their styles running under Seither, as is evident from meets where Cagigal and Bouckaert would play the trading spaces game, switching who crosses the finish line first.

Although this may seem a friendly game between the two, Bouckaert is quick to explain it’s not about the results.

“(Cagigal) tends to go out faster than I do, so sometimes I’m ten-fifteenths seconds behind him, but my fourth and fifth miles are usually faster,” Bouckaert said.

Cagigal and Bouckaert are only two of four Loyola runners to run 8-km. in less than 27 minutes, and have run for almost 8,000 miles in their entire Loyola careers, despite not competing junior year due to Hurricane Katrina.

One of the biggest setbacks was not being able to compete as part of a team.

“It’s bittersweet when you can finish one, two in a region and not be part of a team,” Cagigal said.

They hope their departure will not mean the end of the dominance Loyola’s program has enjoyed the previous four years. Instead, they give a sense of optimism about the future.

“I think the guys we have, they’re young,” Cagigal said. “But they have dropped four minutes from beginning to end, so they have a lot of time to build.”

Harold Kuntz can be reached at [email protected].