Nov. 15, 2007

Tulsa, Okla. - How much can change in a matter of four years? If you are discussing the University of Tulsa's men's cross country team then a lot can. Four years ago, November 13, 2004, Tulsa's men's cross country finished 16th at the NCAA Midwest Regional Championships. On November 10, TU ran at the same course as it did four years ago, finished fourth.

On that day four years ago, Tulsa's top-finisher was 66th (Taylor Williams), in Saturday's race Tulsa had a top-six finisher (John Beattie) and would have had two top-ten finishers if its top-runner (Edwin Henshaw) not pulled out of race in third-place with a broken foot. "The difference is work ethic. Maybe we trained harder and pushed them more. The current runners have the commitment for a better program. You have to get kids that believe in the system and believe 100 percent in that system to get where we are now" said Tulsa's cross country coach Steve Gulley. Senior Joel Stansloski believes " there is more accountability now than there was when I was a freshman. We have trained harder and run faster."

Along with placing fourth, the team received news the next day, it had obtain an at-large selection to the NCAA Cross Country Championships for the first time in school history. "This puts on the map as a cross country program, reaching the NCAA Championships is one of the greatest compliments to our program, said Coach Gulley"

Other than qualifying for the NCAA Championships for the first time in school history, this was TU's first cross country team ever to be ranked nationally. The team first received votes in the October 2nd poll, but then after defeating nine nationally ranked teams at Pre-Nationals; it catapulted to 17th in the rankings. In that race, Tulsa defeated nine teams that are currently ranked: # 5 Wisconsin, # 8 Portland, # 9 Oklahoma State, # 15 Louisville, # 23 Florida State, # 25 Villanova, # 26 BYU, # 27 Iowa State and # 28 Indiana, all of which are currently ranked higher than Tulsa, 29th.

Also competing at NCAA Championships is Tulsa women's runner, junior Alex Becker, who for the second consecutive qualified for the NCAA Championships. She finished 34th at the 2006 NCAA Championships. Becker, the women's C-USA Individual Champion, finished 7th at Pre-Nationals earlier this season, the same course 6K course for the championships.

The 2007 NCAA Division I Men's and Women's Cross Country Championships will be hosted by Indiana State University, November 19, at the LaVern Gibson Championship Course located at the Wabash Valley Family Sports Center in Terre Haute, Ind. The men's race will begin at noon (ET) followed by the women's race at 12:55 p.m. Both championship races will be broadcast live on CSTV. The race can also be seen for free on the University of Tulsa's athletic website, www.tulsahurricane.com.

Tulsa will have three seniors (Jay Matlack, Joel Stansloski and Brett Turowski) compete in the race, who were on the 2004 team, which finished 16th, that are glad of how far the team has come since then.