ABILENE – The Abilene Christian men's cross country team won its 20th consecutive Lone Star Conference title last fall, but second-year head coach Chris Woods knows its going to take a different strategy to keep that streak alive after graduating his top three runners during the offseason.
Gone from the Wildcats are sixth-place conference finisher
Romain Rybicki, bronze medalist
Cleophas Tanui, and
Amos Sang, an All-American, regional and conference champion who beat the rest of 2010's field by 38.86 seconds. He then beat the regional pack by almost 30 seconds.
“We're going to have to surprise some people on the men's side after losing all the talent we had here,” said Woods, whose team was voted first in the LSC preseason poll.
“Not only was Sang a legend here and in the conference, but throughout all of Division II. Losing him was a great blow to the program, and while it's going to be tough to for us to rebound, I have to remember that Sang wasn't Sang until midway through his career. Now I'm looking forward to developing the newcomers over the next four years.”
Despite having a void at the top, Woods likes the squad he has coming back because of its ability to run as a pack. He foresees a group that can place fifth through 10th and add an intimidation factor to the race, rather than one that's stretched throughout the field.
“If you're running solo and all of a sudden you have this purple swarm surrounding you, it's going to be intimidating, but that's how I see ACU winning races,” Woods said. “We have a lot of talented guys all running in a big pack, seven of who can score, and two to three who can be our No. 1. We're interchangeable from top to bottom.”
Returning LSC scorers Will Pike and
Jake Schofield are among the top runners on the men's team, along with senior
James Grantham, a prolific miler (4:09.32) and former junior college All-American, who unfortunately has missed the past few seasons due to injury.
Woods also has been impressed in practice by some of the youngsters, including returning sophomore
Erik Forrister, and freshman standouts Fabian Wessel-Terharn of Germany and Daniel Gleimar of Sweden.
“The men possess the talent to defend their conference title and they can be strong together,” Woods said. “In year's past there was such a gap between Amos to Cleopahs to Romain they were often training by themselves. But this year there's only a two-to-three second difference between our top guys, and during our tempo run last weekend all of them were right there together pushing across the finish line.”
All Woods wants on the women's side is someone to claim the fifth and final scoring position. He says if one more girl steps up, then the team can win its first conference crown since 2008.
“The women placed third last year so the goal is not to go backward,” he said. “My main word is progress, and if we get that fifth girl going then we'll win … I think once a passion to win is instilled as the girls' season progresses and everyone else is stepping up, then someone's going to want that No. 5 spot.”
Chloe Susset, 2010 conference bronze medalist, and Alyse Goldsmith, who placed fifth, are the top returning runners for the Wildcats and Woods is expecting both to qualify for nationals. He then identified newcomers such as Magnolia, Texas, freshman Emily Hill and Iowa Central junior transfer Ayesha Rumble as ACU's No. 3 and 4 performers. All should also place among the top 15 at conference.
But before the Wildcats can concern themselves with postseason glory, they first must focus on each individual meet starting with Thursday night's Bear Twilight Invitational at Baylor's Heart of Texas Soccer Complex in Waco. Races are slated to begin at 7 p.m. with the women's 4K loop followed by the men's 6K.
Teams in the field include Baylor, ranked fourth in the region on the women's side and ninth on the men's, in addition to Texas A&M (3rd -Women's, 5th - Men's), as well as Dallas Baptist, Northwood, Tarleton State, UT-Tyler and Texas State's women. ACU's women's team is ranked ninth in the region, and its men 10th.
“It's a nice small meet for us to start the season and knock off some of the cobwebs, especially for guys like Lynn and Grantham who haven't competed in close to two seasons,” said Woods. “We'll see a lot of good teams there and I think we'll compete strongly against them. We're not going to be knocked around.”
Information from BaylorBears.com was used in this release.
