Ohio will take a road trip to Blacksburg, Va. to compete in the Virginia Tech Alumni Invitational. This competition will carry some of the best not only in the country but also some of the best that Ohio will see this season.
The cross country team will travel to Blacksburg, Va. this weekend for the Virginia Tech Alumni Invitational, where the competition will be the some of the toughest that Ohio will face this season.
Florida State and North Carolina will be joining Ohio in Virginia Tech’s tournament in Blacksburg.
Coach Clay Calkins didn’t run junior Jake Gentile last weekend as a strategic measure so he would be at full capacity for Saturday.
Calkins said that it would have been beneficial to have Gentile at the Miami Invitational, but added that it was better to save him for this weekend.
“We’re going to be pulling on all of our athletes to be at their highest level,” Calkins explained.
“Same thing at pre-nationals, same thing at MACs and same thing at regionals — it’s going to be all hands on deck.”
One of the top runners for the men, junior Jarrod Genther, will be sitting out this weekend due to a minor injury.
“You never want to sit out on meets,” Genther said. “I want to keep my focus on the MACs,”
He doesn’t want a repeat of last year, as said he was “banged up” toward the end of the season when it really mattered.
Although Genther can’t race, his teammates are really excited to compete in this race not only because of it’s competitiveness, but because Saturday’s event is the first official distance (8K) race of the season.
“I feel relaxed,” junior Kurt Steinmuller said.
Steinmuller knows what he has to do to get the job done and running his consistent 85-90 miles a week will pay off, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Switching over to the women’s squad, they look to keep their heads held high and bounce back from the Miami Invitational.
Even though they did not win the meet, they had two top-10 finishes and Calkins is still pleased with their performance.
“We trained through the last meet,” Calkins said. “It may have cost us performance-wise, but I still think we did a decent job.”
Along with junior Kayla Scott, classmate Krista Roehlig looks to produce results similar to her last outing.
They hope to not only build themselves, but carry their teammates with them across the finish line to help shorten the gap and gain a higher score.
All in all, this weekend looks to bring some of the best competition from throughout the country and Ohio looks to fall right in the mix.
The difficulty level should be no different than the level that will be brought to the Ohio Invitational, so Saturday’s meet will act as a precursor to what Ohio will have to offer the following week.
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