KENNESAW, Ga. - It has been six meets over two months, with miles and miles of training mixed in, and the Owls couldn’t be more excited for what is to come on Saturday morning at 8:45 a.m., when they stand at the starting line at the Sperling Sports Complex in DeLand, Fla., and get ready to compete for a second Atlantic Sun Conference Championship.

After a third place finish in the championship last season, the Black & Gold return a veteran-laden squad that is hungrier than ever. The entire roster from the 2007 group that finished in second place at the A-Sun Championship will be running this weekend, and after a 2008 season that saw team leaders Erin Sutton and Britany Reilly redshirt, everyone is excited to be back together and run for a title.

“You look at the team picture from two years ago, and everyone is still here,” head coach Stan Sims said. “There’s no question that we have the talent and the experience that’s needed to come away with this thing. What it will come down to is do we want it bad enough, have we done everything we could to earn it.”

A lot has been made all season about the Owls’ star runner, junior Mackenzie Howe, who has won all six meets that she has competed in and has been the recipient of five 2009 Atlantic Sun Conference Women’s Runner of the Week awards. The Watkinsville, Ga. native had the opportunity to run at the championship course two weeks ago in the Hatter Invitational, winning the race and shattering the course record with a time of 17:42 in the 5k race. The familiarity with the course should help Howe, who knows how to run it in competition.

“I’m very comfortable with the course, it’s very fast and flat for the most part, with some twists and turns towards the end,” said Howe. “I have to make sure I’m near the front towards the end, because with the turns, it’s going to be tough to have a kick and make up places during the latter half of the race. That’s the important thing about the conference race, it’s not necessarily about times, it’s where you are in comparison with everyone else.”

With Howe, Sutton, and Reilly all expected to be near the front of the pack, a lot of responsibility will fall on the shoulders of seniors Soibhan Wolcott, Caitlin German, Lorena Jaime, and Katie Charles, as well as junior Kristen Gibson. A cross country team’s total score is determined by how their top-five runners place, not their top-three, and it will be up to those five runners to provide great races to give the Owls a solid all-around score.

“We know that Mackenzie, Erin, and Britany are going to do their thing, so it’s extremely important for the rest of us to put it all on the line, because that could be the difference in the race,” said Jaime. “My high school coach used to ask us, ‘How bad do you want it?’ Well, we really do want it! Having previewed the course a few weeks ago, we feel like we are really prepared as a team and very confident about the course.”

The Owls were able to preview the course, which winds around a baseball and softball facility and through a wooded area, the day before they ran in the Walt Disney Cross Country Classic in Orlando. The weather that weekend was unseasonably warm, even for central Florida, with temperatures in the 90’s with high humidity. Having experienced race conditions like that, KSU will be better equipped to approach the race this Saturday, when the weather is expected to be similar.

“Personally, I’m used to running in hot weather, having spent my high school career in Texas,” said Gibson, who has two top-six finishes this season and finished seventh at the A-Sun Championship last season. “We know what to expect, having experienced both the course and the weather, and all of us usually get really hyped up for this race and have some of our best performances of the year.”

Belmont and Jacksonville will be the two teams that should give the Owls the most trouble in their attempt to win the conference title for the first time since 2005, their first year in the league. BU is led by senior Brittany Thune, who claimed one of the only two Runner of the Week titles this season that did not go to Howe. The Bruins are looking to collect their fourth consecutive A-Sun crown, and their eighth title total in nine years, disrupted only by KSU’s triumph four years ago.

Jacksonville, for their part, is ranked eighth in the NCAA South Region (KSU is ranked 13th), and is considered to have one the deepest lineups in the conference.

Regardless of the competition, the Owls don’t intend to be satisfied with anything other than a championship. For most of them, it will be their last chance at A-Sun glory.

“It’s exciting that it’s time for the conference race, but we also know that, for most of us, this will be our last collegiate cross country race,” said Jaime, who is finishing up her third season with the Owls after beginning her career at Arkansas. “Our coaches have done their part over the years, and now it’s our turn to give them a token of appreciation by returning from Florida as the A-Sun champions.”