Lady Vols 2nd at SEC cross country

Three Lady Vols ran to all-conference honors and led Tennessee to a second-place finish at the SEC Cross Country Championships Saturday morning in Lexington, Ky.

Arkansas defended its league championship with 39 points to win its 12th title overall. Tennessee was second with 84 points, one better than Georgia.

“A lot of coaches were congratulating me more today than they did the years when we won the meet,’’ Lady Vols coach J.J. Clark said. “I think we shocked a lot of people because we haven’t been doing as well as we were expected to do at the beginning of the season. It was our best performance of the year, absolutely.”

Lady Vol Sarah Bowman was her usual self, finishing fourth by covering the 6,000-meter Kentucky Horse Park’s Steeplechase Course in 20 minutes, 58.13 seconds. It was her third first-team All-SEC honor in as many years.

“What I like about Sarah is the maturity that she has shown, on and off the course this season,’’ Clark said. “It is really showing through her being consistent in her racing and that is something that I am very happy to see.”

The biggest surprise was Heidi Magill-Dahl, who made her Lady Vols debut by finishing ninth. Magill-Dahl, a transfer from Brigham Young, had not run in a meet this fall while administrators verified that she had the required amount of transfer credits. Magill-Dahl, who had not run in a meet since 2005, finished ninth 21:16.45.

“When you get someone who can place ninth, that is definitely going to give you a shot of adrenaline in your team,’’ Clark said. “Heidi came through and ran very tough. She wasn’t nervous, just very confident.”

Magill-Dahl, who made second-team All-SEC, finished two spots behind teammate Katie Van Horn, who improved her finish at last year’s SEC meet by nine spots and finished seventh in 21:09.20 to her first All-SEC citation.

“Her start today concerned me,’’ Clark said of Van Horn. “She didn’t get out the way I thought she should have gotten out, but to move up all the way to where she ended up was a good run.”

Men’s Cross Country: Tennessee finished fourth with 102 points in the SEC meet in Lexington, Ky.

Arkansas won the men’s race with 36 points, completing a school sweep of the two races. Florida (74) was second and Alabama (82) was third.

Tennessee juniors Andrew Press and Steve Tobin earned All-SEC honors, becoming the first Vol duo since Scott DeFilippis and Patrick Gildea in 2002 to accomplish the feat in the same year. Press led the Vols for the fourth consecutive race, covering the 8,000-meter course in 24:42.70 to finish 13th. Tobin was right behind his teammate in 14th place at 24:43.91.

“Andrew ran another steady, strong race to lead the team and Steven ran a very nice race to reach a huge milestone in his career,’’ UT coach George Watts said. “I felt he was ready to pop a big race and he didn’t disappoint.”

Junior Denton Jones finished 16th in 24:51.71. Michael Spooner made the all-freshman team by finishing 29th in 25:19.15.

“We had a lot of positive things happen,’’ Watts said. “First and foremost, the team ran their best race of the season and I’m pleased because it happened at the SEC Championship. We had two All-SEC performers and an all-freshman performer. The other positive out of the race was for the first time we had a five-man spread of less than 40 seconds and that made a huge difference in today’s run.”