bleedCrimson.net Weekly Coach Richburg Interview

bleedCrimson.net will be interviewing the coaches from the men's and women's cross country teams throughout their season. This week we spoke with assistant coach Paul Harkins about the men's and women's teams upcoming meet at the NCAA regionals in Fort Collins, CO. The men's team will feature Josh Sifuentes, Ian Ruybalid, Michael Hart, Patrick Hernandez, Anthony Ellis, James Nduati and Marcus Porter. The women's team will feature Ingrid Flores, Brandi Gutierrez, Amy Arenas, Brittany Hurtado, Christina Herrera, Rayanna Fernandez and Jessica Payne.

bleedCrimson.net: Your team didn't quite have the finish that you wanted at the WAC Championship meet a couple weeks ago, what have you been able to take away from that to help you prepare for this week?
Paul Harkins: We've talked to everybody about how, yeah, we were a little disappointed at WAC but now is a great opportunity to redeem ourselves and run the way we're capable of doing. That's kind of what we've been talking about, using this as another opportunity for redemption. We're facing two of the three WAC teams that beat us so it'll be nice to get another shot at them.

The Aggies are hosting the 2008 Men's and Women's Cross Country Championships on Saturday at the NMSU Golf Course. We talked with three of the key members of the women's team, junior Ingrid Flores, sophomore Brandi Gutierrez and sophomore Amy Arenas to get their thoughts on the season, their improvements and their thoughts on the championship meet.

bleedCrimson.net: Ingrid, you won the outdoor 5k at the WAC tournament and you were back-to-back WAC XC athlete of the week, then a couple weekends ago you were 6th at the Santa Clara invitational with a time of 17:38, almost a minute and a half faster than your result last year. What's been the biggest factor in your improvement and success this season.
Ingrid Flores: I think the biggest fact was just a mental reconstruction. I just went back and looked at all my races last year and I just said to myself I wanted to do a bit better and I wanted to improve in that. It all started last winter for me, that whole radical change.

The Aggies are hosting the 2008 Men's and Women's Cross Country Championships on Saturday at the NMSU Golf Course. We talked with three of the key members of the men's team, senior Josh Sifuentes, sophomore Michael Hart and freshman Ian Ruybalid to get their thoughts on the season, their improvements and their thoughts on the championship meet.

bleedCrimson.net: Ian, What's it been like for you coming in and being able to have an immediate impact as a freshman?
Ian Ruybalid: It's been great. When I first came here my goal was just to be in the top five. I had no idea I'd finish in the top three on the team in every meet. I've been really pleased with it. I've improved a lot since high school and so I'm really excited about that too.

bc.net: What are you looking forward to most in your first WAC Cross Country Championship meet?
IR: I'm looking forward to the level of the competition. I really want to get Top 14 hopefully. I've just gotta race smart and I want my team to do well too.

bleedCrimson.net will be interviewing the coaches from the men's and women's cross country teams throughout their season. This week we spoke with assistant coach Paul Harkins and assistant coach Meaghan Gregory and talked about the upcoming WAC championship meet being hosted in Las Cruces.

bleedCrimson.net: This weekend you host the WAC Cross Country Championship. Talk about the preparation for this week. This is what you've been working toward all season.
Paul Harkins: We've been preparing for this all year long. This has been our focus race for us since last year. Since track season ended we've been looking forward to conference cross country and thinking about what we can do. The preparation has been there, the kids are feeling good, they're very well rested. Their mileage has dropped significantly. I think we're definitely ready to go.
Meaghan Gregory: It's total cliche but championships are won in the offseason. All of our kids worked hard over the summer and came in in great shape and they've been able to up the ante this year because of that. We're ready to go.

bleedCrimson.net will be interviewing the coaches from the men's and women's cross country teams throughout their season. This week we spoke with assistant coach Paul Harkins and talked about the men's and women's teams' first place sweep at Arizona State and their upcoming meet at Santa Clara.

bleedCrimson.net: The men's and women's teams finished in first place at the ASU Invitational. You have to be pleased with the result especially heading into the second half of the season.
Paul Harkins: Yeah, we were definitely excited. It's the first time our men have won a meet in quite some time. The women had nearly a perfect score. I was told that it was the first time in nine years that any school has won both the men's and women's races at Arizona State. I think it just shows that things are going pretty well here and it's a little bit different than it has been in the past and hopefully that's a good thing.

bleedCrimson.net will be interviewing the coaches from the men's and women's cross country teams throughout their season. This week we spoke with assistant coach Paul Harkins and talked about the men's and women's teams, Ingrid Flores and the future of Aggie cross country.

bleedCrimson.net: Talk about the men's and women's teams.
Paul Harkins: We are a very much improved program both on the men's and women's side. On the women's side we have a very solid core of athletes led by Ingrid Flores. She was the conference champion last year in the 5k on the outdoor track. We also have the second place girl, Brandi Gutierrez who was our number two in the 5k at conference as well. It's just a great crew, everybody has improved a lot. We're very young on the women's side, we have our entire team back next year.

On the men's team we have eleven new guys this year to go along with our core of returning guys from last year. We have an All-Conference guy from three years ago back, healthy and ready to go in his fifth year. Then we have just a great group of young guys like Michael Hart who led us in every race last year. Ian Ruybalid is a freshman newcomer this year who has been fantastic for us so far. We've got a transfer James Nduati from Dine College, just a bunch of other guys as well. Anthony Ellis is a kid out of Washington who ran 4:14 in the mile. Just a great group.

bleedCrimson.net will be conducting interviews with Aggie women's track and field head coach Orin Richburg throughout the 2008 season as Coach Richburg builds the Aggie track and field program. In this week's interview Coach Richburg wraps up Aggies' indoor and outdoor seasons, talks his schedule leading up to the Olympics Games and talks about coaching collegiate athletes and Olympic athletes..

bleedCrimson.net: Talk a little bit about this past weekend's WAC championships. You had some strong individual performances and had another regional qualifier.
Orin Richburg: It went real well for us. We had Ingrid Flores who made it into the regional meet at a league champ, the WAC champ in the 5000m and also picked up Randi Grimes in the javelin in addition to the hammer with a school record in the javelin. So it went fairly well for us. We still have some things we have to do. We still have to get a few more numbers into the program so that when we go to the WAC championships we have more opportunity to score points.

bleedCrimson.net will be conducting interviews with Aggie women's track and field head coach Orin Richburg throughout the 2008 season as Coach Richburg builds the Aggie track and field program. In this week's interview Coach Richburg recaps the Aggies' performance at the Don Kirby Memorial Invitational, talks his young pole vaulting group and what the Aggies will be doing in preparation for the conference championships.

bleedCrimson.net: Talk about this past weekend's meet in Albuquerque at the Don Kirby Memorial Invitational.
Orin Richburg: A lot of young ladies came in and keep making improvements in what we're trying to do. We had some decent marks from some of the young ladies in the short stuff. We came pretty close to last year in the times that they ran so we're pretty pleased with that. Leah Benton ran a 56 flat in the open 400m which was the first open 400 she's ran since she's been here at New Mexico State. Our hammer throwers did a nice job. We had some personal bests on a couple of the young ladies. Bernard and Jordan Veney. Randi [Grimes] did a nice job in terms of being our number one hammer thrower there. The 5000m wasn't too bad for us there, we also came back in the 1500m, Brandi [Gutierrez] ran a 4:52. Isabel Chea in the long and triple jumps did a fairly decent job there. Overall we're making strides in terms of where we need to be headed. It's toward the end of the season and we're looking at trying to get consistent and doing a decent job at the conference championships.

bleedCrimson.net will be conducting interviews with Aggie women's track and field head coach Orin Richburg throughout the 2008 season as Coach Richburg builds the Aggie track and field program. In this week's interview Coach Richburg recaps the Aggies' performance at their meet in Fort Collins and talks about the regional qualifying marks and what they mean for the program.

bleedCrimson.net: Talk a little bit about your meet this past weekend in Fort Collins. Randi Grimes had a regional qualifying time in the hammer throw.
Orin Richburg: This weekend we just trying to see some different competition. We got to see some of the smaller schools in the Colorado area and a couple of schools out of the South Dakota and Colorado State and Colorado had some of their athletes there.

Randi had a good weekend in the hammer, she had a regional qualifier. A couple of other young ladies did real well. Ingrid Flores in the 5000m, Leah Benton in the short dash, the 200m, and also Derrhea [Mcliechey] in the 400m. Overall not too bad. We still need a few things to pick up in certain areas so that we can put a little bit better foot forward so we can get ready for the conference meet. Overall it was a pretty good weekend for us, we have a few things we need to get ironed out as far as consistency with some of our athletes. We have to get a little more consistent, we can't have a big mark and then drop down to a minimal mark. If we're going to be consistent and be able to perform at the level we have to to be successful in the WAC, our consistency has to be a little bit more intense and a little better in some of our athletes.

bleedCrimson.net will be conducting interviews with Aggie women's track and field head coach Orin Richburg throughout the 2008 season as Coach Richburg builds the Aggie track and field program. In this week's interview Coach Richburg recaps the Aggies' performance at the UTEP Invitational and looks ahead to this weekend's meet at Colorado State.

bleedCrimson.net: Can you talk a little bit about this past weekend's meet at the UTEP Invitational?
Orin Richburg: It was another opportunity for us, we had Kansas State, Houston, UTEP and since it's their big invitational meet they had some of the more elite athletes that compete at a higher level. We had a chance to go down and get in that mix of trying to be involved around some of the athletes that put some real good marks on the board and trying to get our young ladies to understand that consistency is the name of the game. You have to be able to compete at a higher level, whatever that level is for you as an athlete and you have to be able to do that week in and week out. I think we just need to expose them to a little bit more of that tough competition, not saying that they didn't have it before but they just need to learn how to respond to that and go out and give us a good effort.