Junior Becca Rae and the BG Falcons will be looking to go out with a bang in the last meet of the 2014 cross country fall season. They will head to Madison, Wisconsin, to compete in the NCAA Division I Great Lakes Regional meet.
The race will consist of cross-country teams from the Mid-American Conference region. The women’s race will have a total of nine teams, while the men’s contest will have seven teams.
“We definitely want to finish strong” said Rae. “So we’ll have momentum going into the track season, knowing we ended this season on a high note.
Rae has been doing well this season, setting a new personal record in the 5,000 meter and coming in fourth place overall. She’s also been the team’s top runner in all five meets this season and recently made Second Team All-Conference.
“We want to show up and be really competitive against certain teams,” Rae said.
At their last meet, the MAC championship meet, the women’s team placed fourth overall and had a total of 127 points, the team’s best finish since the 2006 season.
“We feel pretty good about what they accomplished,” said Snelling. “We’re pretty happy about with the results and we’re going to use it to help us focus for Friday.”
Going into the last meet, Snelling said he also hopes to end the year with the Falcons in the top 13 rankings. In a recent poll conducted by the United State Track and Field and Cross Country Association, the Falcons are ranked number 13 in the region.
This is BG’s highest ranking in its current format.
For the men’s team, assistant coach Eric Thatcher helped the team focus more on the psychological aspect of this meet.
“We sat down and had a meeting to mentally prepare for the 10k race,” said Thatcher. “So we got the guys mentally prepared for the transition to running a 10k and nothing really different for the physical part of the training.”
Thatcher also said they’re excited for next season because the team will be able to gain more experience through the races and compete at a higher level in track and field.
The meet takes place on Friday, Nov. 14. The women’s 6,000 championship race begins at noon, while the men’s 10,000 championship race takes place at 1 p.m.
