Men's Final Results

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ABILENE - The Tarleton Texan cross country team finsihed fourth overall at the 2009 South Central Regional meet on Saturday, held at Grover Nelson Park in Abilene.

"I was really, really proud of the way our guys ran today," head cross country coach Pat Ponder said.  "I am not dissappointed in them at all.  I am disappointed for them because we felt like we had a chance to earn a trip to the national meet.  But these guys gave it everything that they could today.  They left it all out on the course and that is all that I can ask for."

The Texans tallied 97 total points in the men's 10,000-kilometer race and came up just 11 points shy of earning a trip to the national meet which will be held in Evansville, Ind. on Nov. 21.

Missouri Southern took first place overall, racking up 56 total points ahead of Southwest Baptist who finished in second-place with 81 points.  Pittsburg State edged out the Texans tallying 86 points on the day.

"You have to give credit to all three of those teams that finsihed ahead of us," Ponder said.  "All three teams ran a nice race and deserve all the credit today."

The Texans finished ahead of Lone Star Conference opponents Cameron (5th, 224), Eastern New Mexico (9th, 251), Abilene Christian (10th, 264), East Central (11th, 305), Texas A&M-Commerce (14th, 353), Angelo State (15th, 370) and West Texas A&M (17th, 389).

Tarleton's Jared McNeil (5th, 31:32.23) and Westyn Rosilies (10th, 31:51.58) each earned All-South Central Region honors after crossing the finish line in the top-15.  McNeil qualified for the national meet after finishing fifth-place overall.

The Texans had four runners total finish in the top-30 as McNeil and Rosilies were followed by Ryan Quezada who finished 26th overall with a time of 32:39.02 and Jonathan Kern who finished 28th overall with a time of 32:42.89.  Finishing just behind them were Gerzain Valenzuela (31st, 32:48.91) and Chris Haerall (32nd, 32:51.54) along with Logan Mynar (66th, 34:04.02).

All seven runners will return to a team that finished two places better than last season's (sixth overall) regional squad.