The Tulane Invitational on Aug. 31 gave many runners on the Loyola cross country team their first taste of college competition.
Although talented, the team lacks necessary experience, said coach Al Seither.
“Daniel Pattillo has hung in there from the beginning. He doesn’t have much experience and told me when he tried out that he liked distance,” he said. “I told him to run two miles for me. He asked me, ‘How fast?’ I replied, ‘Eight minutes if you can,’ and he optimistically said, ‘I’ll try.'”
Eight minutes, however, would’ve been world record time. Despite his inexperience, biology freshman Pattillo of Doral, Fla., finished with the second best male performance in his first collegiate race.
Also new to the team are Sean Meleen, a history freshman from Thibodeaux, La., and Avery Mitchell, a psychology freshman from Boston, Mass. The additions to the women’s team include three local standouts: Ursuline High School’s Rachel Leonard, sociology freshman, Academy of the Sacred Heart’s Margot Bienvenu, visual graphics freshman and biology freshman Kristen Francis, from Spring, Texas, after being displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
While the Tulane women’s team captured the majority of the top 10 finishes, Mary Erin Imwalle, mass communication senior, took the eighth spot. Jackson State University’s Jemu Zarzar took sixth – the only other top place finisher in the race not on the Tulane squad.
Imwalle said the biggest difference from this team and the 2004 conference championship is the amount of younger runners with less experience.
“It was an OK start. We have to get better, and with hard work, we could be in the top three teams in the conference,” she said.
The new runners are already making a positive impact. Leonard placed 31st, finishing eight spots ahead of Rebecca Reed, psychology senior.
Her twin sister Emily, also a psychology senior, finished 40th place next to Bienvenu, who finished 41st.
The women’s team ran the meet with the minimum of five runners, although Imwalle said seven would have been better.
Coach Al Seither said the program needed more athletes to tryout, especially freshmen, to allow more time for work on individual and team running skills.
Seeing potential in the freshmen, Seither said Leonard, Bienvenu and Francis need to stay closer to Imwalle at workouts and meets to be competitive this season.
“It’s kind of early to tell, but I’m here to get them to the next level,” he said. “We still have a lot of work ahead of us to figure out the pieces of the puzzle, but Leonard did OK, and I’m counting on the Reed twins to step it up. They just have to run past the pain. If Imwalle gets first, and the other runners come in anywhere from third to 15th, we’ll be fine.”
Meleen brings his experience to the men’s team after a successful career at E. D. White High School in Thibodeaux. He finished 25th as a junior at the Division III state championships.
Meleen also said he seems to be over the shin splints he suffered in 2006 and led four Wolfpack men in the two-mile race. He finished 14th while Patillo finished 16th, Maroon sports columnist Zach Custer 20th, and Maroon photo editor Tyler Kaufman 21st.
Don Weaver can be reached at [email protected].
