Bucknam's Hogs regain trophy 'that belongs here'

Arkansas Amon Kemboi runs during the SEC Cross Country Championships on Friday, Oct. 30, 2020, in Baton Rouge, La.

Tennessee had a 42-year head start on the University of Arkansas when it came to winning SEC men’s cross country championships, but the Razorbacks made up ground and passed the Vols relatively fast.

Arkansas won its 26th SEC cross country title — in 30 competitions — Friday in Baton Rouge to take the conference lead after being tied with Tennessee.

The Vols won their first SEC championship in 1949 and their 25th in 1990. They haven’t won a title since Arkansas joined the conference in 1991, and have finished second to the Razorbacks seven times.

Ole Miss took the top three spots Friday with Mario Garcia Romo winning the 8,000-meter race in 23 minutes, 32.9 seconds, followed by teammates Cole Bullock and Waleed Sullman.

But the No. 1-ranked Razorbacks’ depth carried them to the team title by capturing fifth through ninth with Amon Kemboi, Luke Meade, Jacob McLeod, Emmanuel Cheboson and Matt Young.

Arkansas won with 35 points. Ole Miss, which won its first two SEC cross country championships the previous two years, was second with 59 points. The Rebels’ last two scorers were 24th and 33rd.

“I’d rather win the meet than go 1-2-3,” Razorbacks Coach Chris Bucknam said. “We got the job done. We’ve got a strong team, and I’m happy for the win.”

John McDonnell — Bucknam’s predecessor — led Arkansas to its first 17 SEC cross country titles from 1991-2007.

“You can thank Coach McDonnell for that,” Bucknam said of leading the SEC in championships. “He dominated the SEC when Arkansas joined the conference.

“It’s just a reminder of the great tradition we have that we were able to get that many wins in that short amount of time compared to Tennessee being in the conference for so many more years.”

Bucknam, who has won nine SEC cross country titles in 12 years, said it felt good to bring the championship trophy back to Arkansas.

“It was huge, because we feel like that trophy belongs here,” Bucknam said. “We had a two-year hiatus. Two years ago we kind of gave it to [Ole Miss]. We weren’t a very deep team and we had an athlete basically drop out, and that cost us the meet.

“Then last year we had to press the reset button. The other years we’d been reloading, but last year we had to rebuild. It was just time. We did that successfully and got our title back.”

Winning an SEC championship during the coronavirus pandemic, Bucknam said, carried extra meaning.

“This is a bonus season the way I’m looking at it,” he said. “In the summer, we didn’t know what was going to happen. There are still a lot of schools and conferences that aren’t competing, so hats off to the SEC. They didn’t let go of the rope, and we’re doing fall sports and we got to win our conference championship.”

Bucknam said he expects all of the Razorbacks to take advantage of the extra season of eligibility awarded by the NCAA and return to Arkansas.

“We anticipate having our whole team back, which is really big,” Bucknam said. “As well as we did this season, we know that we’ve got a lot of room for improvement.”