After dominating the competition in their last three meets, the BG women’s track and field squad is headed to Ypsilanti to compete in the Indoor MAC Championships hosted by Eastern Michigan.
Since capturing the All-Ohio Championship title two weeks ago, the team has been focusing on fine-tuning for this weekend’s conference championships.
Head coach Scott Sehmann acknowledged that this weekend’s meet will be by far the most important and competitive meet of this year’s indoor season.
“I think we’re physically and mentally prepared for that [competition],” Sehmann said. “I would say we’re as healthy as we’ve ever been, which is certainly how you want it to be when you go into a high-caliber meet like the championship meet.”
With an injury-free squad and high confidence from recent wins, there is little standing in the way of another stellar performance by the Falcons. If anything, the squad’s youthful roster may be a small obstacle, but Sehmann does not see that factor holding the team back.
“At this point I believe our freshmen are exposed and acclimated to the type of competition they’ll compete against at the college level,” Sehmann said.
The Falcon freshmen have been performing well throughout the season and they have had no shortage of leadership from older members on the team. Senior Amber Culp and junior Melissa Krueger have been setting the standard for the distance runners, while senior Alicia Taylor and junior Valerie Holland have led by example in the sprints and hurdles. Junior middle distance runner Marquita McGowan has also provided a fine example for her younger teammates.
The MAC championship meet will be full of fierce competition, partly because of the high level of parity throughout the conference. Many of the teams in the MAC are closely matched in terms of competition.
“Between third and tenth place, there’s [going to] be a lot of parity there. Our objective is to improve on what we’ve done in the last year or two, which I think we’re ready to do,” Sehmann said.
The meet will be held today from 10:30 a.m. until 6:30 p.m. and will continue tomorrow from 11 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. in Ypsilanti, Michigan.
