The University of Mississippi Athletics
TRANSCRIPT: Ryan Vanhoy Press Conference
11/4/2019 | Cross Country
Ole Miss Cross Country Coming Off Best Combined SEC Finish in Program History
Fresh off another historic weekend at the SEC Cross Country Championships, Ole Miss track & field and cross country associate head coach Ryan Vanhoy met with members of the media Monday morning to discuss the conference champion Rebel men and the SEC runner-up Rebel women.
Opening statement:
"We're back from Lexington, Kentucky after last Friday's SEC Championships. It was a pretty historic day for our program and was the best finish overall with the men and women combined. The men repeated as SEC Champions and the women finished second."
On the men's race:
"We were obviously very happy to defend our title from last year and extend the streak to two straight championships. That is something that we talked about at the beginning of the season and was a big goal for us. Not only to defend our title from last year, but to try and get a streak going.
"We were led by Waleed Suliman in third place, Farah Abdulkarim in fourth place, and Cade Bethmann in sixth place. Those three guys led the way for us. They ran together for the majority of the race until the last 1000 meters and really broke it open. We had a freshman make his debut for Ole Miss, Cole Bullock. It was his first race in uniform. We hadn't decided on running him this season in uniform until literally the week of the meet. But he came and finished ninth. He was the top-freshman in the SEC, so obviously a great sign for the future of the program and also a great sign for him in his first race to step in on that stage and do as well as he did. Our fifth-place finisher and final scorer was Michael Coccia in his first SEC performance for us was 13th, so that sealed it for us."
"I think it was a 55-point victory, which we were really pleased about. Our goal was to try to dominate the race as best we could and try to get as many guys as we could in the top-10 in the individual race. Very happy with that performance."
On the women's race:
"We knew going in, there were probably two or three teams fighting for second. The Arkansas women are the number one team in the country, so we knew that would not be a realistic target for us, but to try to be second would be a nice finish. We hadn't been second since 2016, so that was definitely a nice performance by our women. It was definitely our best race of the year as a group."
"We lost our top-runner at the beginning of the season to an injury for the year. So, we had kind of struggled to find our identity since then. All season, we had some good individual performances here and there, but hadn't had a strong team performance together until this weekend. Luckily, we put it together at the right time. I had faith that we would. We kept talking about it all season. It only really matters from SEC's and onwards that we really start to hit it at the right time."
"We had a really strong performance from our top-five scorers. Their difference in finishing time was eight seconds from our first-place finisher to our fifth-place finisher, which was definitely the closest that we have ever had. Our top-runner was 14th for All-SEC for the first time. That was Victoria Simmons. We also had the top-freshman finisher on the women's side as well in Skylar Boogerd from Memphis, Tennessee. So, to have both freshmen of the year for the SEC men and women definitely was a nice thing to see out of our team."
On the rest of the season:
"The next meet we have coming up is the NCAA South Regional. That is in Tallahassee and is in two weeks from now. The way that meet works is that is how you qualify to the NCAA Championships. You must be a top-two automatic team at that meet."
"I think our men are going in ranked first. Our women are again going to have to battle to make it out. There are probably two or three teams that could finish in that second automatic spot and I think we are one of those. Based on how we competed at SEC's, if we can continue to build on that performance then I feel good about our team heading into that meet."
"Our goal on both sides is to get back to the national championships. It would be the sixth straight appearance for the men and the fourth straight for the women. So, obviously we want to continue to build those streaks and get to the NCAA Championships and be ready to compete there. That's in Terre Haute three weeks from now."
For more information on Ole Miss Track & Field and Cross Country, follow the Rebels on Twitter (@OleMissTrack), Facebook and Instagram.
Opening statement:
"We're back from Lexington, Kentucky after last Friday's SEC Championships. It was a pretty historic day for our program and was the best finish overall with the men and women combined. The men repeated as SEC Champions and the women finished second."
On the men's race:
"We were obviously very happy to defend our title from last year and extend the streak to two straight championships. That is something that we talked about at the beginning of the season and was a big goal for us. Not only to defend our title from last year, but to try and get a streak going.
"We were led by Waleed Suliman in third place, Farah Abdulkarim in fourth place, and Cade Bethmann in sixth place. Those three guys led the way for us. They ran together for the majority of the race until the last 1000 meters and really broke it open. We had a freshman make his debut for Ole Miss, Cole Bullock. It was his first race in uniform. We hadn't decided on running him this season in uniform until literally the week of the meet. But he came and finished ninth. He was the top-freshman in the SEC, so obviously a great sign for the future of the program and also a great sign for him in his first race to step in on that stage and do as well as he did. Our fifth-place finisher and final scorer was Michael Coccia in his first SEC performance for us was 13th, so that sealed it for us."
"I think it was a 55-point victory, which we were really pleased about. Our goal was to try to dominate the race as best we could and try to get as many guys as we could in the top-10 in the individual race. Very happy with that performance."
On the women's race:
"We knew going in, there were probably two or three teams fighting for second. The Arkansas women are the number one team in the country, so we knew that would not be a realistic target for us, but to try to be second would be a nice finish. We hadn't been second since 2016, so that was definitely a nice performance by our women. It was definitely our best race of the year as a group."
"We lost our top-runner at the beginning of the season to an injury for the year. So, we had kind of struggled to find our identity since then. All season, we had some good individual performances here and there, but hadn't had a strong team performance together until this weekend. Luckily, we put it together at the right time. I had faith that we would. We kept talking about it all season. It only really matters from SEC's and onwards that we really start to hit it at the right time."
"We had a really strong performance from our top-five scorers. Their difference in finishing time was eight seconds from our first-place finisher to our fifth-place finisher, which was definitely the closest that we have ever had. Our top-runner was 14th for All-SEC for the first time. That was Victoria Simmons. We also had the top-freshman finisher on the women's side as well in Skylar Boogerd from Memphis, Tennessee. So, to have both freshmen of the year for the SEC men and women definitely was a nice thing to see out of our team."
On the rest of the season:
"The next meet we have coming up is the NCAA South Regional. That is in Tallahassee and is in two weeks from now. The way that meet works is that is how you qualify to the NCAA Championships. You must be a top-two automatic team at that meet."
"I think our men are going in ranked first. Our women are again going to have to battle to make it out. There are probably two or three teams that could finish in that second automatic spot and I think we are one of those. Based on how we competed at SEC's, if we can continue to build on that performance then I feel good about our team heading into that meet."
"Our goal on both sides is to get back to the national championships. It would be the sixth straight appearance for the men and the fourth straight for the women. So, obviously we want to continue to build those streaks and get to the NCAA Championships and be ready to compete there. That's in Terre Haute three weeks from now."
For more information on Ole Miss Track & Field and Cross Country, follow the Rebels on Twitter (@OleMissTrack), Facebook and Instagram.
Players Mentioned
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