The Cougars finished fifth in their first outdoor meet of the fall at the Rice-Holiday Inn Hotel & Suites Medical Center Fall Invitational.

Junior Reka Kovacs stood out for UH, finishing in the top 10 in four events — 400 IM, 200 IM, 100 Breastroke and the 200 Breaststroke.

Senior Kim Eason finished eighth in the 50 Free and 10th in the 100 and 200 Free.

Julia Lonnegren again led the divers with a second-place finish in the 1M and finished 10th in the 3M.

The Cougars’ next competition will be on campus on Nov. 17-19 at the Campus Recreation & Wellness Center for the Cougar Classic Invitational.

Men’s team finishes third at Conference USA Championships

For just the second time since joining Conference USA, UH recorded a top-three finish at the C-USA Championships.

Senior Wesley Ruttoh led the Cougars with a 23:55 time, good for third place individually.

Freshman Yonas Tesfai followed him for UH in eighth place with a time of 24:11.

Junior David Smith finished 16th overall with a 24:47 mark.

Ruttoh was named Senior of the Meet and was named to the All-C-USA First Team.

Tesfai was named Freshman of the meet and earned C-USA Second Team honors.

Smith was named to the C-USA Third Team.

sports@thedailycougar.com

In place of it the Cougars competed in an unplanned dual-meet against the defending Conference USA Champion, Tulsa on Saturday.

“Our team was excited to run against some great competition at Missouri Southern,” head coach Ryan Turner said in a release.

“Unfortunately Mother Nature didn’t cooperate. I’d like to thank the staff at Missouri Southern for inviting us up to participate and to coach Gulley of Tulsa for putting together a great impromptu dual competition.”

For the men’s team, senior Wesley Ruttoh was the top UH finisher of the four-mile race, finishing in 19 minutes, 7 seconds. Junior Yonas Tesfai placed third with a split of 19:27 and David Smith finished in 11th place in a time of 19:59.

The women’s race was a two-mile course. Senior Megan Munoz was the top finisher for the Cougars, placing in fifth in 11:02. Junior Kathryn Ducommun placed eighth in 11:14, and senior Starla Garcia ran a split of 11:50 — good for 11th place.

Several Cougars stayed behind at the Rice Invitational on Friday. With a 5K course, freshman Anthony Coleman was the top male performer for UH, placing 47th in 18:20.

The women’s course was a 4K, and Ciera Johnson senior Johnson earned 57h place clocking in at 16:28.

Lamar won the team men’s event, scoring 13 points to the Cougars 19.

Texas Orange and Texas White placed first and second before UH.

The top overall male performer was freshman Yonas Tesfai who completed the three-mile course in 15 minutes, 20 seconds. David Smith was close behind finishing in third with a 15:34 split.

“Yonas Tesfai was awesome, I am excited to have him in our program,” head coach Ryan Turner said in a release.

“We knew he was going to be good. In our opinion he was one of the top-30 senior distance runners in America.”

Absent, however, was senior Wesley Ruttoh, who is dealing with a toe ailment.

“We are resting him until the Missouri Southern Stampede,” Turner said. “Once he gets healthy I can see him contributing right away and improving our team.”

Junior Kathryn Ducommun was the Cougars’ top performer on the women’s side. She ran the two-mile course in 12:13, finishing in 15th place. Eight seconds later, senior Starla Garcia crossed the finish line to finish in 18th.

Senior Megan Munoz finished in 21st with a time of 12:35.

“I’m very proud of our women,” Turner said. “I thought they ran exceptionally well considering we were competing against one of the top teams in the country.

“We still have room for improvement, but collectively I thought their performance was a success.”

“It’s starting to make a name for itself,” head coach Ryan Turner said. “When I first got here it was a meet where there were 30 kids in a race. This year, every race had more than 100 kids. This is our fifth year, so the growth we’ve had in participation is great.”

Instead of arranging races by freshmen, junior varsity and varsity, the competitions are based on all four academic classifications.

“What coaches like about it is it’s an early-season meet and it gives kids a chance to compete against kids their age. It’s like the equivalent of an early-season scrimmage for some of these kids.

“Early in the year not everyone’s in good shape, there are teams that are ready to race who are ready to race but there’s plenty of teams who aren’t. Their kids aren’t overwhelmed early, but it’s still a big-quality meet.”

But few athletes can maintain top speed for a race that lasts anywhere from three to five miles.

“Our athletes are like the modern-day version of superheroes,” head coach Ryan Turner said. “I send my kids out on a two-hour run once every two weeks, how many people can do that? An easy run is six-minute a mile pace, and a tempo run is at 5 minute, 15 second-mile pace.

“Most people couldn’t do that on their best day.”

Turner once knew the feeling of being an energetic collegiate athlete. It was not until he stopped running consistently that he recognized the elite level of fitness required to run cross country.

“In college I thought this is how everybody felt, and what I did was natural,” Turner said. “Five years later after graduating, I’m walking up steps, and I’m out of breath. That’s how everybody else feels.”

Turner and the Cougars will begin their season Sept. 2 when they host the Johnny Morris Invitational.

UH has four meets before the Conference USA Championships on Oct. 31. The Cougars will head to Waco on Nov. 12 for the NCAA South Central Regional Championships.

In the second meet of the season, the Cougars travel to Joplin, Mo., for the Missouri Southern Stampede. Other competing schools include the Arkansas Razorbacks, who have the most cross country national championships in NCAA history.

The Tulsa Golden Hurricane, the defending men and women’s C-USA champions, will also be in attendance.

“That gives us a chance to run against to really high-quality opponents in the early portion of our season,” Turner said. “We can just kind of gauge our top guys against those teams.”

For the men’s team, Eastern Kentucky transfer and Kenyan native Wesley Ruttoh is expected to perform well immediately. After redshirting last year, Turner is ready to unleash Ruttoh’s talents this season.

“We’re expecting him to become our top man, and to qualify for the national championships,” Turner said. “He has the talent to do that. That’s why we want to run against Arkansas and Tulsa early in the year. Those are people he’s going to have to race if he wants to be a national qualifier.”

Senior Nate Pineda and junior David Smith took turns leading the Cougars last season. The addition of Ruttoh gives the Cougars a deeper squad. Freshman Yonas Tesfai could also make his presence felt quickly.

“This year it’s going to be neat to see,” Turner said. “We’re going to have three or four guys who could be our top guy.”

Doug Kelley, an 800-meter runner on the track team joined the cross country program for his senior campaign.

He was the 2010 C-USA outdoor champion in the 800, but running cross country is a steeper distance than what Kelley is used to.

“He’s going to go from running a race that’s half a mile to a five-mile race,” Turner said. “I think what Doug’s going to provide is leadership. He’s going to be a senior, he’s been successful and he has credibility with the runners.”

The women’s team can also rely on the experience of three seniors in Ciera Johnson, Starla Garcia and team captain Megan Munoz.

Munoz could be poised to make progress in her final collegiate season.

“She had some breakthroughs last year on the track,” Turner said. “She has that sense of urgency going into her senior year that this is it. Every race is going to be one you won’t have any more.

“When she’s backed up and gets some pressure on her, she tends to excel.”

Junior Kat Ducommun will also be in the mix. She led the team in three of the Cougars’ seven meets in 2010.

In track season, she finished second in the steeplechase at the C-USA championships, and was only a second-and-a-half away from qualifying for regionals.

The unpredictability of the event breaks the monotony of a race that lasts more than seven laps.

“In cross country you’re on the grass, running around trees and making turns,” Turner said. “It’s not like on the track where everything’s an oval and constant. There’s hills and terrain to deal with. Since she does the steeplechase with obstacles that translates well.”

Garcia, Munoz and Ducommun give the Cougars three potential top runners. As long as it’s friendly, Turner said competition among teammates is a healthy dynamic.

“I look at it as a positive having different girls being able to be the number one,” Turner said. “You have people that are driven and battling for that spot. When you have that one person who is always number one, people start to settle, they get complacent.

“We always want to have competition in anything we do. Even if it’s the first person to the cafeteria, building that internal competition at practice starts to build an inner animal.”