ABILENE – The Abilene Christian men's and women's cross country teams will compete in their final regular season meets over the next several days, first racing at Saturday's Midwestern State Cross Country Carnival before going to the Blue and Gold Classic at Angelo State on Tuesday.
Wildcats' head coach Chris Woods said he's treating both competitions as tempo runs in preparation for the postseason.
“The Angelo State meet offers a preview of the conference championship course, and I don't want us to race on it,” he said. “I want to see our teams run as a pack as we put a plan in place to win the conference title. The race at Midwestern is going to be a 10K for our men and I want them to get one in before going back there for regionals.”
The Wildcats are coming off a pair of tough showings at the Oklahoma State Cowboy Jamboree where the men finished 23rd of 25 teams, while the women placed 18th out of 20. Chloe Susset led the women to the finish line with a 6K mark of18:53.77, which was just a second slower than her previous best recorded two weeks earlier at the Naimadu Classic.
Emily Hill also made progress in her second 6K of the year, lowering her season best from 21:58.69 to 21:16.65.
The men's team ran at Oklahoma State without three of its key veterans:
Spenser Lynn,
Jake Schofield and
James Grantham, but did receive new season bests posted in the 8K by
Gary Duncan (27:28.11), Will Pike (26:22.05) and Trey Knight (28:15.08). Marshall Holland missed matching his season best by two seconds.
The Midwestern State XC Carnival begins at 9 a.m. and will take place at the former Hawk Ridge Golf Course located off Loop 11. The Blue and Gold Classic will be held at Red Arroyo in San Angelo.
