ABILENE - ACU Friday returns to Texas A&M's Watts Course for the NCAA South Central Regionals. The Aggies bill their championship site as '... the premier cross country course in the state of Texas,' and head Wildcat coach
Jarvis Jelen completely supports that claim.
"By far ... " he said. "This is a good, fair course and one of a few in Texas that can meet NCAA specifications. It's very beneficial for our team to be competing here, because we can run a race that's better suited to our needs. We're also not getting stuck near the start or tripping over one another."
The ACU women enter this competition as the region's 11th-ranked team led by First Team All-WAC harrier and two-time NCAA XC qualifier
Irene Rono. SEC and Big 12 Champions Arkansas and Texas are the favored teams to advance to national championships in Stillwater followed by LSU, the host Aggies and SMU.
For Rono to make her third trip to nationals she'll have to rank among the top four individual runners not on a qualifying team.
And Jelen has all the confidence she'll again run a stellar race.
"I feel confident in her skills and believe that she's better right now that she was before," he said. "She ran fast (16:19.1) at Arkansas earlier this year and set a personal best - by a lot - at Oklahoma State (20:53.8). She's raced against many of these same women before and I think only a few in the region can match her."
For the remaining Wildcats, Friday's meet gives them a final shot at redemption without the pressure.
"Our men's team is very fit aerobically and so I feel it's beneficial for us to be running at 10K," said Jelen. "We can go out there and try to beat the regional and state teams we maybe didn't earlier in the year or even at the WAC Championships. It's also another great opportunity for our freshman to gain championship experience."
Race Day in College Station begins at 8:30 a.m. with the women's 6k, followed by the men's 10k at 9:30 a.m. The top two teams and the first four finishers in the race not associated with those two teams will advance to the NCAA Championships, held Nov. 19 in Stillwater, Oklahoma.
