Men, women look to make statement at MAC Championships
This is it — all of the hard work and preparation this season comes down to this weekend.
The Central Michigan cross country teams will travel to Three Rivers Saturday for the Mid-American Conference Championships. The meet, to be held at Pine View Golf Club, is hosted by Western Michigan. The women will race in the 6K at 11 a.m., while the men start their 8K at noon.
The top finishers from both the men and women’s sides will be conference champions. The top 15 finishers from each race will be awarded All-MAC honors.
Willie Randolph, director of cross country, said the team is confident heading into this weekend’s competition.
“The team has been putting some good workouts together and they are really focused on taking care of business,” Randolph said.
It has been six years since the men’s team won its last MAC championship, while the women have not won a title since 2000.
The women’s team is currently ranked seventh in the Great Lakes Region, along with other MAC schools Ohio, Toledo and Miami. On the men’s side, Eastern Michigan (eighth), Kent State (14) and Ohio (15) are regionally ranked.
Running for the women will be Holly Anderson, Danielle Dakroub, Brittany Dixon, Veronica Garcia, Kylee Kubacki, Raeanne Lohner, Krista Parks, Maddie Ribant and Sarah Squires.
Cory Arnold, Wade Buchs, Jason Drudge, Nathan Huff, Jeremy Kiley, Chris Lotz, Chris Pankow, Nathan Sanchez and Zach Tranter will compete for the men’s team.
After finishing 26th out of 261 runners at Pre-Nationals Oct. 16, junior Raeanne Lohner is focused for competition this weekend.
“Our main goal for this weekend is to focus on ourselves, running together, and making sure that we put ourselves in a position that is competitive with any other team,” Lohner said.
Last season, the men finished third after Riak Mabil finished runner up and Sammy Kiprotich placed seventh. The team, without Mabil and Kiprotich this season, is rebuilding, but senior Chris Pankow looks forward to his last outdoor MAC championship meet.
“We have been working on tweaking some of our fast twitch muscles by tagging on faster paced 800’s at the ends of our workouts,” Pankow said.
