October 22, 2004 – ATLANTA – Some things, if done over and over, can become boring – winning conference championships is not one of those things. That was the sentiment of the Morehouse cross country team, which captured its tenth consecutive Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference title Friday at Atlanta’s Mosley Park.
As predicted, the Flying Maroon Tigers lived up to their names in the SIAC championship meet, flying ahead of 10 conference rivals. Morehouse was the pre-season favorite to repeat as conference champions and the Tigers didn’t disappoint.
Easily outdistancing the competition, Morehouse harriers hustled out to an early lead and finished strong, capturing six of the top nine spots in the 8-kilometer race.
Josiah Lagat, who earned the meet’s Most Valuable Athlete award, paced the Maroon Tigers. As he has done in nearly every meet this season, the senior from Eldoret, Kenya, ran away from the pack, finishing first with a time of 27:30.24. Morehouse’s Hillary Kibet, a senior from Ndanai, Kenya, finished second at 28:30.91.
Morehouse freshman Julius Hanks (29:40.19) and sophomore Ross McMillan (29.41.63) finished fourth and fifth, respectively, behind Kentucky State’s David Bice (28.39.22) who finished third.
Sophomore Edmond “Brian” Dixon (30:46.38), who finished in eighth place, rounded out the scoring for Morehouse, in the race in which the top five times of each team are tabulated to determine the final score.
In a sport in which low score wins, Morehouse collected 20 points, followed by Albany State with 83 points and Fort Valley State with 93 points.
Freshman Damian Prince (30:58.13), who finished ninth, and Kevin Chase, (32:43.97), who finished in the eighteenth spot, complete the Morehouse sweep.
Morehouse won without the services of Alex Brickler, who is recovering from a stress fracture in his left foot. Brickler, a sophomore from Tallahassee, was a major player on last season’s conference championship team. He is expected to heal completely and be back in action for the upcoming track and field season.
