ABILENE – With one all-America runner and one of the heroes of the Wildcats' outdoor track and field season returning in 2010, the ACU men's cross country team is favored to win its 20th straight Lone Star Conference championship while transitioning under new head coach Chris Woods.
Woods and the Wildcats will get their season started Friday when they run in Baylor's Bear Twilight Invitational at the Baylor Intramural Fields in Waco. The women's race is set to begin at 6:30 p.m. with the men's race to follow.
Last year, the Wildcats won their 19th straight league crown behind individual LSC and NCAA Division II South Central Region champion
Amos Sang, but the Wildcats were a disappointing 10th at the regional meet, failing to qualify for the national meet.
A dominant force in LSC?track and field during the spring,Sang will be joined again in Fall 2010 by LSC Freshman of the Year Colby Delbene, senior
Cleophas Tanui (runner-up at the LSC championship meet), senior
Romain Rybicki and sophomore Spencer Lynn.
The ACU women – who struggled to an eighth-place finish at last year's LSC meet – could be in for another up-and-down season in 2010. Sophomore
Chloe Susset, who earned all-LSC honors last year with a sixth-place finish at the conference meet, returns for the Wildcats. Anais Belledant, who competed in track and field last spring, figures to give the Wildcats some depth this fall, while Oklahoma State transfer Anyse Goldsmith should figure in the Wildcats' top five.
