Men's and women's cross country is set to race in the CAA
Championships on Saturday at Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia. This will be the first race in the
championship part of the season for Mason and will also be a chance for each
team to continue to their success from earlier in the season.
The men, currently ranked 12th in the region,
will have a tough battle on their hands to knock off the 11-time defending CAA
champion William & Mary and the rest of conference field. However, coming off two straight race
victories, Mason will be coming in with a lot of confidence.
"We feel good," said Head Coach Andrew Gerard. "This
is our first Championship race and it is always one of our goals to perform
well at the CAA's. Our main goal is to
continue the momentum. William &
Mary has an excellent team, but we're healthy, we have a good deal of momentum
coming from our last couple of meets and we plan on running aggressively and
seeing what happens."
Meanwhile, the women are looking to shake off a tough race
at Appalachian State and return to their form in the Mason Invitational where
they took first place. "We have been
working more on the mental aspect of racing, especially the last two weeks,"
said Associate Head Coach Sita Waru-Ewell.
"Physically the girls are fit, we just haven't been able to put it
together consistently yet."
After last racing in a meet with 200 runners, Mason will go
back to racing a much smaller field for the CAA Championships. "In a small race the little changes are magnified. If one of our guy's beats a guy from another
team in a small race like this, it's a two point swing and can make a
difference in the final standings," reflected Gerard.
While the women finished third in this race last year behind
William & Mary and James Madison, the men have finished second to William
& Mary in three out of the last four seasons. Both teams are looking to take the next step.
"We will try to race
in the same way we ran our home meet," said Ewell. "I think they race best when they start
conservatively and are able to finish the race strong. Since half our team is freshmen this year,
this will be our biggest race of the season because we will be able to compete,
while still developing and learning how to win consistently."
"I don't think we want to go in with a preconceived idea of
where we should finish," said Gerard about the men's team. "If you go in talking about the end result,
then you forget about the process. There
is so much strategy that goes on in the team battle and in the individual
battles that we need to focus on the process and doing things correctly, then
beating people to the line at the end of the race."
The races this weekend will begin at 10 am with the men,
followed at its conclusion by the women's race and both coaches are hoping to
see their runners race the best they have all year.
"We're just trying to at least hold that third spot again,"
said Ewell. "We also have a couple of
girls that are trying to be All-CAA, which would mean finishing in the top 12
overall."
"Robert Reynolds has won a couple of awards and Alex Zyryanov has been in there as well, but the bigger thing for me is that I feel
that all of our guys who will be running are really on an up-swing," concluded
Gerard. "We had a 20 second spread
between our number 1 and 5 runners at Appalachian State, so our focus is going
to be on having another tight pack."
