The Bobcats men and women are hopeful for a strong performance at the NCAA Regionals this weekend.
Ohio plans to put its best foot forward this weekend and to start to prepare for the off-season and indoor season as they head into the NCAA Regionals.
Ohio will be competing in what will most likely be its last meet of the cross country season Friday in Madison, Wisconsin.
All 34 schools that are competing with Ohio are all from the states in the Great Lakes region.
For coach Clay Calkins, this is nothing more than an early start on the indoor season for his women’s squad, in addition to the off-season for his men’s squad.
“On the men’s side, top-15 in the region would be a fair estimate,” Calkins said. “For the women, I think we need a little redemption and try to get better performances than we did at the MAC Championships.”
The women’s squad, in particular, did not race as well as Calkins had hoped in the Mid-American Conference Championships a couple of weeks ago. He anticipated both of his squads racing competing with the top-five teams in the MAC, but fell short with the women’s placing 10th.
Calkins said that a large part of that was due to injury, but looks to have his two strong distance runners — juniors Krista Roehlig and Caroline Hildebrand — for this meet and definitely for the indoor track season starting in a few weeks.
Throughout the season, there have been several individuals that have stood out, including juniors Jake Gentile and Kurt Steinmuller, and this is a perfect opportunity to show it.
There are some meets when the runners may want to pull away from the pack to better their time, versus racing with the team and getting a better team score, and the NCAA Regional meet gives them a chance to do that.
With the top-two teams and the top-15 runners qualifying for nationals, this is more of an individual race and this will give runners like Steinmuller and junior Kayla Scott the opportunity to branch away and compare themselves to other runners in the region.
With most of the men’s squad returning next season, Calkins hopes this regional meet will bring them some motivation for the off-season and next fall.
“For the men, just try to get into the upper-echelon in the region,” Calkins said. “(We want to) try to set their mark and that helps the team mentally going into the (off-season).”
He knows that with the level of competition that the NCAA has to offer, there’s a small chance his teams will qualify. He does not, however, want his team to overlook the fact that this still is a competitive meet.
“We just want to stay focused on the task at hand,” Calkins said.
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