Abilene Christian’s cross country teams finished fourth for the men and fifth for the women at the first United Athletic Conference Championships on Oct. 30, each one spot better than at last year’s Western Athletic Conference meet.

It was a season of transition: a new head coach in Wayne Angel, a new conference and a roster that returned most of its top eight but lost its two best men and its top woman.

Mark Barajas led the men with a 10th-place finish in the 8K and All-UAC second-team honors. Hannah Kasper was the Wildcats’ top woman, placing 22nd in the 5K.

Season at a glance

The women opened with a win at the Naimadu Classic and closed fifth at the UAC meet; the men were second in Abilene, tied for second in Fort Worth and fourth at conference.

A new coach and a new conference

Wayne Angel took over this summer after seven seasons as head track and field and cross country coach at Northern Colorado.

Because recruiting was largely finished when Angel arrived, the early focus was on developing the athletes already on campus.

The women returned five of their top eight finishers from last year’s WAC Championship but lost top runner Chloe McLellan. The men also returned five of their top eight but lost their top two, Kevin Castruita and Carlos Cortez.

The only new man was Nash Jones, a transfer from Northern Colorado. Four women who ran the 400 and 800 for ACU’s track team last spring joined the cross country squad: Emma Santoro, Madelyn McFadden, Anna Vyn and Hanna Zwiebel. 

The move to the UAC changed the competition. Eastern Kentucky was picked first in both preseason polls, and the league’s coaches slotted ACU’s teams in the middle of the pack.

Women: a breakthrough at conference

Hannah Kasper, a junior from Tampa, Florida, was ACU’s top woman at the UAC Championships, placing 22nd in 19:05.5 as the team finished fifth. Saylor Stevenson was right behind in 24th with a time of 19:11.4 in a field of 73.

Kasper said the conference race was a breakthrough. She said she prepared more than she usually does, researching the new league’s teams, and credited steady week-by-week gains under Angel’s training.

The team’s real task was a reset, Kasper said, “a fresh start and a new opportunity,” with new faces on the roster and a new coach. She said the locker room had a good combination of “a lot of quiet leaders” and “a lot of loud leaders.”

She said depth was the biggest challenge. With no recruits last year, Kasper said, mid-distance runners who never volunteered for cross country were asked to step in.

“They embraced it,” she said, and “sacrificed a ton for our team.” Kasper and Santoro, a mid-distance runner herself, were both named captains, which she said let the two groups “bond and grow closer.”

Men: steady gains through a year of change

Mark Barajas, a junior from El Paso, led ACU’s men at the UAC Championships, finishing 10th in the 8K in 24:54.6 and earning All-UAC second-team honors. 

Barajas said the coaching change caught most of the team by surprise. He heard about it in a summer FaceTime from Coach Smith, who promised a coach who could put the team in a position to succeed, and by August, the team had met Angel. Barajas called the transition smooth and said the early personal records at Naimadu and UTA were an eye-opener, “this training’s working great.”

The team absorbed transfers, graduations and injuries along the way, and Barajas said losing depth was a real hit.

“We all just had each other’s backs,” he said. Most of the group is upperclassmen who “have that chemistry with each other already.”

Newcomers Nash Jones and Max Power joined that mix, with Power making his Wildcat debut at the UAC meet.

Barajas said the team’s mantra has come straight from the new coach: “trust the process.” He said that is what carried the group into conference, where “everybody was just in good spirits.”

Looking ahead to indoor track

Both top finishers are turning to the indoor season with the new coach’s training in place and their goals set. Kasper will run the 5K, and Barajas is chasing the school record in the indoor 3K.

He said he wants a championship for the team; “if your main goal isn’t to win championships, what is your reason for running?”