October 28, 2009 – Athletics

Kat Zimmerly ’11

Photo by Sara Tincher

Cross Country Ready for NCAC Championship
Ohio Wesleyan will host at Liberty Park in Powell

As the Ohio Wesleyan men’s and women’s cross country teams prepare for the North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) championships on Saturday, coach Kris Boey says he is confident in his runners.

“I think we are ready from a training perspective,” Boey says. “I have confidence in the work we’ve been doing. We’ve been training hard, but we’ve also been training intelligently and putting our best performances forth.”

Boey said the arrival of H1N1 on OWU’s campus has been somewhat of a concern, but he is confident his runners are taking care of themselves and will be ready for Saturday.

“Every day it seems like there’s someone who is feeling under the weather or has a fever,” Boey says. “That’s the kind of thing that keeps you up at night, something a coach can’t control.”

Boey says the week before such a big event is the time to also get the runners’ minds focused. He says having the meet at home is a great opportunity that the teams should take pride in, and that it takes some of the pressure off of an already intense event.

“This last week is a process of getting people mentally tuned up,” he says.

Boey says on the men’s team, Sharif Kronemer, Kale Booher, and Evan Hitchcock ’12 are some of the strongest runners. On the women’s team, he says Sarah Shinn ’10, Kat Zimmerly ’11, and Jane Lehman ’13 have been running exceptionally well.

Boey says there will be tough opponents for both teams: Oberlin, Allegheny, and Wittenberg for the women and Wabash, Oberlin, and Allegheny for the men.

“I have confidence in our group,” Boey says. “We always have a big-time performance when there’s the most on the line.”

The meet is this Saturday at Liberty Park in Powell. Start time is 11 a.m. for the women and 12 p.m. for the men.

– Michelle Rotuno-Johnson ’12