As the first meet of the season approaches, the Mississippi State cross country team is working hard to improve on last year’s results. The team will attend its first invitational of the season in
Sewanee, Tenn on Sept. 6.
“This will be our warm up meet,” senior Robert Scribner said. “We will just be working into the bigger meets. At the time of this meet, we will still be training hard, so we will not be so fresh for this one.”
Preparing for cross country meets means a lot of time and training for the athletes. “Right now we are practicing every day of the week with one day off,” head coach Steve Dudley said. “Basically we are running and trying to get into shape for the season.” The team cannot hold practice seven days out of the week, so they only meet on six days.
“We do run individually on the seventh day, but when you are a runner you usually run everyday anyway,”
Scribner said. As the team prepares for its upcoming season its biggest goal is to improve and do better than it did last year.
Men’s coach Steve Dudley expressed concern for trying to improve on the conference and national level this year, although overall improvement is the main goal.
“My expectation for this season is to be better than we were last year,” Dudley said. “We want to improve on the conference and national level but every season we try to improve, that is our overall goal. But for instance, if we placed fifth last year at the meet we are attending this year, we want to finish at least fifth or better. We don’t want to finish worse than before.” Last year the Mississippi State cross country teams attended the NCAA Regionals in Gainesville, Fla. where the men’s team took home fifth place and the women’s team took 12th place. The men’s team earned 135 points while the women earned 322 points.
The teams were also recognized by the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Association last year for being one of the nation’s top academic programs. The women were one of 158 schools and the men were one of 98 nationwide to receive this honor.
The cross country teams also attended the SEC Championships last season where the men took home fifth place as the women finished in seventh place. The men’s team left with a total of 138 points and the women
had 209 points.
“I feel good about myself as we enter the season after
having success last year,” sophomore Adam Lenz said. “As a team I also feel good and positive. The guys on the team are really good guys and they are a lot of fun to train and run with.” The men’s team did not take on any freshmen this year despite losing two seniors from last year’s team.
“It’s bittersweet,” Scribner said of his senior year. “I am a fifth year senior and all the other athletes that were here when I got here are gone now. Obviously I hate for it to end but I am going to really enjoy my last year running.”