Everything the Ohio cross country team has worked toward culminates this weekend in the Bobcats' most important meet of the season.
Ohio travels to Akron Saturday to compete in the Mid-American Conference Championships, a meet that has been the focus of the entire season, coach Clay Calkins said.
As the future stands
here I think we want to look past the MACs and towards Regionals and then to Nationals Calkins said. But I mean
this year we're looking at MACs and it's always an important meet - one of the most important meets of the year - but we don't want to limit ourselves just to MACs. But this year we're limited on numbers.
Although the team will have one more meet following the conference championships, the team goals set this season revolved around this meet due to what Calkins labeled a rebuilding season. Nonetheless, the goals are very simple for both the men's and women's team.
We'd love to bust into the top five on the men's side
Calkins said. It's looking like
between fifth and sixth right now
it's going to be a tough battle. I think the top four spots are locked up. On any given day you don't know
but it's looking like we're fifth or sixth.
The teams Calkins said will more than likely finish in the top four are Central Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Miami and Kent State with Western Michigan being the Bobcats toughest competition for fifth.
But this meet is not only about the team results. Calkins said both runners Drew Frum and Andrea Maas have a good shot at finishing All-MAC.
One of my main goals is to break 18 (minutes)
Maas said. And that would probably put me in the top 12 which would be All-MAC. And basically I want the (women's) team to finish higher than they did last year
which was 10th. I think if we all run really good we could get seventh or eighth.
Ohio has been tapering its workouts to better times for this meet, creating self-expectations of setting personal records, several of the runners said.
We are looking to earn a little respect in the MAC for sure this year
runner Austin Schiele said. We're looking to go in there around sixth
