The Bradley cross country teams will head to the Missouri Valley Conference Championship meet in Valparaiso, Indiana this weekend with bounties on their heads. The women are looking to win their fifth Valley title in the last six years, and the men are looking for their sixth straight.
Heading into the race, the Bradley men were picked to win and the women were picked to finish second.
Last year, the men not only won the conference, but placed second at the Midwest Regional Meet and 24th at the NCAA National Championship. Each team will send their top seven runners to the meet.
Those not competing ran their last race of the season at the Leatherneck Invitational at Western Illinois University last Friday. Redshirt-sophomore Ben Wagoner took home the overall win, covering the 8-kilometer course in 25:15.3, for his first collegiate win.
The women took home the team title and were paced by Irishwoman Aisling Joyce, who ran the 6-kilometer course in 22:32.2 and placed second overall.
With all attention turned the conference meet, head coach Darren Gauson is confident in both teams’ abilities to compete.
“My confidence is high,” Gauson said. “We’re definitely in a race this year, and I think it’ll be a fun day.”
All season, the top Bradley male has been redshirt-senior Jake Hoffert. He broke 24 minutes in the 8k, and feels confident about his chances at the meet. Hoffert said he has high goals for both the team and himself.
“I’d like to win,” Hoffert said. “One is obviously the lowest score I can get, so that would be the most I could do to help the team. Our team really thrives in that kind of race where times do not matter … Our training may not look like a bunch of shiny sports cars, but it gets the job done.”
Although the women’s team has been the dominant force in the MVC, they have not been able to take the next step that the men took last year. Earlier this season, Gauson stressed the importance of getting more runners closer to freshmen Ayah Aldadah, Tyler Schwartz and redshirt-junior McKenzie Altmayer.
Senior Gabby Juarez is now fully on the upside after a leg injury, while for the first time in several years, junior Erin Gallagher is injury-free. The women are on the right path.
As for the top three, Gauson is confident in their ability to own the conference once more, and voiced it to the athletes at their final team work out before the meet, on Tuesday.
“We [Gauson, Schwartz and Altmayer] talked this morning at the workout, and we’re really confident in our ability and trust our training,” Aldadah said. “I just can’t wait to get out there and go after our goal that we’ve had for three months.”
The men’s race is tomorrow at 10:30 a.m. and the women will get underway one hour later at Valparaiso. Bradley will send both teams to the NCAA Midwest Regional Meet on the campus of the Oklahoma State University Friday, Nov.15.
