BG’s men’s and women’s cross country teams will compete in their home opener tomorrow for the Mel Brodt Invitational.
The women’s team will start a 5K race at 2 p.m., and the men’s team will follow with an 8K race at 2:45 p.m.
The Invitational is named after Brodt, who coached BG cross country for 25 years. He was inducted into the University Athletics Hall of Fame in 1988.
The women’s team is looking for its first win of the season after losing to Toledo last Friday.
Coach Cami Wells is interested to see how the women compare to Western Michigan, which was picked finish one place behind BG in ninth by Mid-American Conference coaches in the preseason. The MAC championship is just over one month away.
Dayton, which recently lost narrowly to Miami, will also compete tomorrow. Miami is the defending MAC champion and was picked to finish first during the preseason. So Wells is curious how BG will compare to Dayton, keeping in mind how BG might fare against Miami at the MAC championships.
BG finished third at last year’s Invite with Carly Wells finishing 10th (18:48), the highest of any returning Falcon.
Despite losing to Toledo, Wells has urged her runners to be positive going forward. She expects the women’s team to finish in the top half of the meet, even though she said some very strong teams will be competing tomorrow.
The men’s team lost in the same Toledo meet last week, but unlike in the women’s race, Toledo will be competing in the men’s race tomorrow.
Junior Christopher Moody finished third at Toledo and was the highest Falcon finisher in last year’s in Invitational, placing 22nd with a time of 28:10. BG finished fourth as a team last year.
Wells said the men have been working very hard in practice at closing the gap between runners in front of them.
‘The men have also been starting to hold each other accountable for the training they do,’ Wells said. ‘The key thing for them [tomorrow] is to run to their potential.’
Both teams will compete in the Iona Meet of Champions next Saturday in the Bronx. The women will run a 6K race at 9:30 a.m., and the men will run an 8K race at 10:15 a.m.
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