AUSTIN – Tye Doty and Celeste Meyer finished as the No. 1 and No. 5 runners, respectively, at the Texas Grass Routes Saturday at the University of Texas to lift the Texans and TexAnns to third place finishes.
 
“Tye is having a great season and I am very proud of his performance and leadership,” said Tarleton head coach Pat Ponder. “Celeste has been working very hard to improve her performance and today shows proof of that. I'm very proud of both of them.”
 
All of the runners were forced to run through difficult conditions after rains created muddy routes. The routes were recreated due to mud making the women's race a 5K and the men's race a 7,500m event.
 
Meyer led the TexAnns in the 6K event Saturday morning by running a 20:15.5 to lead the ladies in their second 5K run of the season.
 
Katelin Huckabee (20:26.9) finished in 10^th place for her best finish of her young career, topping her 11^th place finish at Texas Tech last week. Karen Ramming also finished in the top 20 with a time of 21:05.1 for 16^th place.
 
Lauren Finley (21:55.0) and Payton Shoush (22:30.6) rounded out the TexAnn runners in 26^th and 30^th place, respectively.
 
Behind Doty on the men's side were Dylan Willett, Miles Joslin and James Polasek, who came across the line with top-10 finishes. Willett (26:10.0) improved his 8K time by 1:9.31 from last week to claim a sixth place finish while Joslin (26:28.2) posted his best 8K time of the season en route to a seventh place finish. Polasek had the best finish of his young career with a ninth-place finish in a time of 26:35.37.
 
Thorne Pettigrew (28:12.5) and Stefan Campos (30:36.12) rounded out the Texan runners in 31^st and 47^th place, respectively.
 
“I honestly believe we had a chance to win this race,” said Ponder. “On both the men's and women's teams, we had someone run out of gas near the end. I truly believe if those two were able to hold on to their pace, we would have had a strong chance to win. I am, however, proud of all them for fighting through tough conditions and giving us everything they had.”
 
Tarleton will be back in action Oct. 9 at Angelo State.