With the Mid-American Conference Championship a month away, and with just two meets until then, the BG women’s cross country team faces a tough field and a challenging course today in its fourth meet of the season.
BG will travel to Delaware for the 5K All-Ohio Championships today at 2 p.m. before hosting the Falcon Invite on Oct. 17.
The MAC Championship is Oct. 31, hosted by Ohio University. BG was voted to finish eighth in the MAC preseason and is looking to exceed that expectation.
The Falcons have been working all year to make as much progress as possible, and another opportunity awaits them today.
BG is one of 44 teams overall and one of four MAC schools to compete in the 29th edition of the women’s All-Ohio. BG has won the meet as a team seven times in its history, most recently in 1998.
Each team is allowed to race only seven runners. Andrea Pereira de Almeida, Carly Wells, Ashley Fischer, Abby Koch, Sally Kandie, Megan Kelsey, and Heather Conger will be the seven Falcons to compete.
Any remaining runners will compete in the open competition at 3:30 p.m. Barbara Powers, Autumn Dettmann, Mindy Henry, Courtney Krummert, Taylor Stichter, and Alixe Korsnack will run in that.
Today’s meet is the Falcons’ first in two weeks after competing on three consecutive weekends to start the season.
‘The weekend off from competition allowed us to get in more practices, harder workouts last week and a long run on Saturday,’ said coach Cami Wells. ‘It was also an opportunity to rest a little bit.’
Wells said the course in Delaware is similar in difficulty and terrain to the one BG raced on two weeks ago at the Iona Meet of Champions. The field of teams is equally difficult.
‘This is probably the best competition we’ll see from the top 10 to 15 teams all year. Ohio is a very good state as far as competition level in cross country from all the different divisions and the NAIA level,’ Wells said. ‘We’re looking forward to competing against all of those schools.’
Within the MAC, the Falcons will be facing the top three preseason favorites in Miami, Akron and Ohio. BG has yet to face any of those three teams so far this season.
‘Once we go head-to-head it gives us a chance to see where we stack up against the other schools in the conference,’ Wells said. Until then, however, the Falcons can’t compare how they’re doing against other MAC teams due to differences in courses and their lengths.
