After a three week hiatus from competition, BG’s cross country team returns for two weekend meets in Ohio and Kentucky.
The men’s cross country team will be competing in the All-Ohio championships, while the women will head to the Louisville Cross Country Classic.
This is the start of a two-week stretch between games for the Falcons with these events being crucial setup for how the remaining meets can play out. Head track and cross country coach Lou Snelling looks forward to the meets as he says the team has stepped up their training and is looking forward to seeing senior Andrea Alt and freshman Elena Lancioni shine this Friday.
“We’ve been training at a higher volume and pace,” Snelling said. “Alt should take a big step this weekend and Lancioni, who’s been training at a high level, should do good.”
Snelling then went on to say that he wants the team to take as much as they can to get ready for the Mid-American Conference title meet.
“Dealing with the bigger races and what comes with them,” Snelling said. “We want to get what we can out of the race in order to get ready for the MAC championship.”
The athletes are also ready to get back into the swing of things. Senior Greg Black, of the men’s cross country squad, was excited to go up against other Ohio-based colleges and see how things turn out.
“We’re going to see most of the MAC schools this week,” Black said. “Akron, Kent, Miami, so I think it’s going to be a real good opportunity to see where we stack up at this point in the season against some of those MAC schools.”
At last year’s All-Ohio championships meet, Black finished 39 out of 289 in the 8,000 meter and set a personal best time of 26:17:22. This year, Greg plans to outdo himself and test himself against the other schools in the conference.
“I finished 39th, 40th, so I would definitely like to improve upon that,” Black said. “Maybe crack the top 30. I think that would be an awesome goal for me.”
Assistant track and cross country coach Eric Thatcher is prepared to see the men’s team mix it up with the opposition and focus on staying within each other, gaining experience.
“We’re fortunate that we have a senior [Black] that’s battle tested and he’s really helping us gain confidence in the practices,” Thatcher said. “For majority of our team, they only had a few opportunities to race an 8k, which is the college distance and this will be a good test for us.”
The All-Ohio Champion-ships take place this Friday, Oct. 3rd in Cedarville, Ohio at the Elvin R. King XC Course. The Louisville Cross Country Classic will be on Saturday at the EP Tom Sawyer State Park.
