Ags take 14th at Regionals, Haidat All-Region

JOPLIN, Missouri (November 4) – In what turned out to be the final event on this year’s cross country schedule, the Cameron Aggies took part in the NCAA Division II Regional Championship this afternoon in Joplin, Missouri. The Aggies finished in 14th place out of 16 schools with a total of 329 points. A total of 116 runners from 20 total schools took part in the ten-kilometer event.

“I definitely believe this was a stepping stone for us, considering how young we are and how well we ran,” Head Coach Matt Aguero said. “We beat some conference schools on a really good, fast course. We got to go against some really good competition.”

The event’s host, Missouri Southern State, won the event with an overall point total of 41. Abilene Christian’s Serge Gasore won the individual title with a time of 30:28.3. Gasore also won the Lone Star Conference Championship meet of two weeks ago.

The remaining top ten finishers finished in the following order:

2nd Place – Julius Nyango – Abilene Christian – 30:33.8
3rd Place – Dustin Dixon – Missouri Southern – 31:02.0
4th Place – Philip Birgen – Abilene Christian – 31:07.5
5th Place – Tim Testa – Pittsburg State – 31:08.6
6th Place – Michael Pierce – Southwest Baptist – 31:21.7
7th Place – David Fuentes – St. Edward’s – 31:25.0
8th Place – Issac Garcia – Missouri Southern – 31:26.8
9th Place – Mujahid Hassaballa – Pittsburg State – 31:29.9
10th Place – Ryan Arthur – Missouri Southern – 31:30.6

Cameron’s top finisher once again was junior Mudasar Haidat who came in 14th place overall. His time of 31:52.2 was good enough to qualify him for the All-Region team. It is the second year in a row that an Aggie made the All-Region team (David Chirchir). Haidat missed out on qualifying for the NCAA National meet by just a couple of places.

“Mudasar ran an awesome race but barely missed out (on qualifying for Nationals),” Aguero said. “I’m very pleased with how everybody ran; we performed a lot better than we did at the conference meet.”

The Aggies finished 7th at the LSC meet behind Eastern New Mexico University, among other schools. At today’s meet the Aggies finished better than the Greyhounds of ENMU. Additionally Haidat, who finished 6th at the LSC meet behind four ACU runners and a runner from Tarleton, today defeated the same Tarleton runner (Rey Hinojosa) and finished with the fifth-best LSC time.

The rest of the Aggie squad finished as follows:

53rd Place – Juan Ruiz – 33:32.2
75th Place – Casey Kreger – 34:26.6
91st Place – Mubashar Haidat – 35:11.3
96th Place – Jamin Jones – 35:41.2
100th Place – Garrett Hofmann – 36:25.6
106th Place – Aaron Hibbits – 37:43.8

“Aaron Hibbits strained his hip during the race, but everybody else ran pretty well,” Coach Aguero said. “Juan ran an amazing race. He ran his eight-kilometer personal record in this race and just ran great.”

As mentioned previously, this was Cameron’s final meet on the 2007 cross country schedule.

“I’m very pleased with season,” Coach Aguero said. “I think that our guys ran well and everybody, all the way from Mudasar to some walk-ons, ran personal bests. We continually improved throughout the season and that’s the main thing.”