The University of Mississippi Athletics
Ryan Vanhoy Press Conference Transcript
10/29/2018 | Cross Country
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Ole Miss Men Snapped Arkansas’ Eight-Year Winning Streak for First SEC Title
After winning the first SEC title in the history of Ole Miss cross country and track & field last Friday, Ole Miss associate head coach for cross country and track & field Ryan Vanhoy met with the media to discuss the historic win for the Rebel men and the continuing rise of the Rebel women's program. The full transcript can be found below.
Opening Statement
"A successful weekend for cross country overall. Women got us started on Friday with a third-place finish in the conference. It was one of the more competitive fields at the conference level since I have been here. In six years, it was probably one of the more competitive fields, so for us to finish third I thought was very good. There were probably four teams in the conference that will be represented at the national level, if I had to guess. Clio (Ozanne-Jaques) was 12th; she was our top finisher, for Second-Team All-SEC. We had a lot of girls who were running at the SEC level for the first time who we were counting on as contributors. I thought, all things considered, their third-place finish was strong. Men's team had an incredible day, winning our first conference championship ever. I think in six attempts we have been close. I think four out of the last five years going to this meet we always thought that we had a chance to win. To do that and come home with the trophy was incredibly satisfying. I think we scored 36 points which was our lowest score we have ever had. I think our finishing spread had our top finisher in fourth place and our fifth-place scorer was in 11th place. Only 14 seconds separated our first and fifth runners. We could not have had much more of a better day then what we had. To come to the SEC meet, knowing you had a chance to win and running the best race of the year as a whole team was definitely a very exciting day for us. Up next, we will head to Tallahassee for the NCAA South Regional next Friday. Our men will likely enter the regional as the favorite. However, you still have to run the race for nationals, and you still have to show up and perform. Obviously, there is no easy route to get to the NCAAs. On the women's side, there will be five teams in that regional competing for two automatic qualifying berths. It will definitely be the most competitive our regional meet has been since I have been here as well. It will be a good challenge for our women's team. If things go well, we will be looking at going and securing an automatic berth for the third straight season."
On what was working for the Rebel men this year as opposed to years prior…
"I think we have been overlooked this year. There has been a lot of preseason hype around a couple of other teams in our conference, and I think we flew under the radar. Amongst ourselves, over the last couple of months, we started to realize that if things go our way we could pull it off. To what actually clicked, we had a couple of guys step up big. I think this group certainly in terms of training and consistency has been one of our best years overall. It is the feeling amongst our group that we will go in and compete really hard together. As we got further and further into the race it became clear that we had five guys in the front of the race. Once they started to notice that they really fed off of that energy. In the last 1000 meters of the race one of our guys made a hard surge and broke the race open. He pulled the rest of our group along, and we went from there."
For more information on Ole Miss Track & Field and Cross Country, follow the Rebels on Twitter (@OleMissTrack), Facebook and Instagram.
Opening Statement
"A successful weekend for cross country overall. Women got us started on Friday with a third-place finish in the conference. It was one of the more competitive fields at the conference level since I have been here. In six years, it was probably one of the more competitive fields, so for us to finish third I thought was very good. There were probably four teams in the conference that will be represented at the national level, if I had to guess. Clio (Ozanne-Jaques) was 12th; she was our top finisher, for Second-Team All-SEC. We had a lot of girls who were running at the SEC level for the first time who we were counting on as contributors. I thought, all things considered, their third-place finish was strong. Men's team had an incredible day, winning our first conference championship ever. I think in six attempts we have been close. I think four out of the last five years going to this meet we always thought that we had a chance to win. To do that and come home with the trophy was incredibly satisfying. I think we scored 36 points which was our lowest score we have ever had. I think our finishing spread had our top finisher in fourth place and our fifth-place scorer was in 11th place. Only 14 seconds separated our first and fifth runners. We could not have had much more of a better day then what we had. To come to the SEC meet, knowing you had a chance to win and running the best race of the year as a whole team was definitely a very exciting day for us. Up next, we will head to Tallahassee for the NCAA South Regional next Friday. Our men will likely enter the regional as the favorite. However, you still have to run the race for nationals, and you still have to show up and perform. Obviously, there is no easy route to get to the NCAAs. On the women's side, there will be five teams in that regional competing for two automatic qualifying berths. It will definitely be the most competitive our regional meet has been since I have been here as well. It will be a good challenge for our women's team. If things go well, we will be looking at going and securing an automatic berth for the third straight season."
On what was working for the Rebel men this year as opposed to years prior…
"I think we have been overlooked this year. There has been a lot of preseason hype around a couple of other teams in our conference, and I think we flew under the radar. Amongst ourselves, over the last couple of months, we started to realize that if things go our way we could pull it off. To what actually clicked, we had a couple of guys step up big. I think this group certainly in terms of training and consistency has been one of our best years overall. It is the feeling amongst our group that we will go in and compete really hard together. As we got further and further into the race it became clear that we had five guys in the front of the race. Once they started to notice that they really fed off of that energy. In the last 1000 meters of the race one of our guys made a hard surge and broke the race open. He pulled the rest of our group along, and we went from there."
For more information on Ole Miss Track & Field and Cross Country, follow the Rebels on Twitter (@OleMissTrack), Facebook and Instagram.
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