The new venue on the intramural fields of A&M proved to be a meet PR producing course for many Maverick runners on Saturday. For others the high noon heat proved to serve as equalizer to the pancake flat course’s speedy potential. Stand out performances were had in the efforts of Melissa Hulme, Amanda Hassler, Brittany Hodgson, and Yijing Sun. Kaleta Johnson and Nelly Kontchou also continue to demonstrate big improvements since the start of the season. Melissa finished third overall, and again was our team leader. She bettered her performances in the past two years at a&m and set her second best 2 mile cross country time in her career at SJS. Amanda Hassler who competed at John Cooper last year, improved upon her meet time from her first year on the team as a sophomore by 15 seconds. Brittany Hodgson also improved by 15 seoncs on her 2003 time. Yijing Sun, was the big winner of the day in terms of meet PR performances. Yijing, who also competed at Cooper last year, improved upon her 2003 time by 1 minute, 23 seconds. YiJing’s strong summer training efforts are producing some big returns for her this Fall. Other great performers were Nelly and Kaleta. While our race distance is increasing, Kaleta Johnson is decreasing her pace time – she is riding an incredible improvement curve. Nelly Kontchou, is on that same curve with Kaleta, literally moving from the back of our pack to the front with her stellar performances in our past two outings. Like Kaleta and Nelly, a driven Caitlin Brown, continues to be a steady force for the Mavericks, posting a time that is also closely paced with the shorter distance races we’ve run thus far this season. The Mavericks faced stiff competition from a strong freshman class from KHS (5 of the top 6 from KHS are freshmen, only one scoring slot was filled by a non freshman – their 4 year letter winning senior captain). The Mavericks have their work cut out for them in upcoming meets at Rice and the Ramble. The Mavericks posted a 6th place finish at A&M this Saturday with great finishes by many veteran and new runners for the SJS squad. Top five scorers for the Mavericks were Captain Melissa Hulme, 3rd; Junior Kaleta Johnson, 29; new comer Caitlin Brown, 33; freshman Nelly Kontchou, 56 and the power PR runner, Yi Jing Sun, 67. Special thanks to our support crew this week, notably Shepherd #2 for helping w/ mile splits! Please come out to cheer on the Maverick Harriers at Rice this weekend!