The men’s and women’s cross country teams will open their season Friday with the Mel Brodt Collegiate Opener, which will be held on the Forrest Creason golf course in BG.
The men will start at 6:30 p.m. and the women will directly follow at 7:00 p.m..
This meet will be the only home meet for the Falcons this year, and will also be the site for next year’s MAC Championships.
“This is an important meet for us because it is really our only opportunity to compete on this course before the championships next fall,” said Lou Snelling the team’s coach.
The Falcons will compete against Ball State, Eastern Michigan and Toledo in this season opener. This meet puts together some very talented teams in Toledo, who won the conference championship two years in a row.
They qualified for national championships as a team this past year and are currently ranked third in the region. Eastern Michigan, which also qualified, is currently ranked in the top 15 of the region.
“It’s not too big of a meet but it’s going to be a pretty high level of competition,” Snelling said.
The new coaching staff received its first recruiting class this year as practice started up August 19. The team has been preparing intensely for the season ever since.
“It’s been exciting for us having our first recruiting class come in,” Snelling said. “We have had a great feel so far in terms of the focus, intensity and the attention to detail everybody has shown so far.”
After a summer of working hard to get better, the team will finally be able to show everyone their hard work has paid off.
“We are definitely going into this meet a little bit low key this time around and hopefully that will eliminate any of the jitters,” Snelling said.
Although this is the first meet of the year, it is very important for the team and coaching staff to know the end of the year is more important. “Our big goal is to revolve around October November with Conference, Regional and Nationals,” Snelling said.
