MOREHEAD, Ky. — Coach
Clay Dixon and the Morehead State men's and women's cross country teams will return to action on Friday to run at the Falcon Invite in Bowling Green, Ohio. The events will take place on the Bowling Green Cross Country Course with the Steve Price Women's 6,000-meter race starting at 4:30 p.m. and the Bob Rothermel Men's 8,000-meter competition to follow at 5:15 p.m.
In addition to the host school, Bowling Green, the 14-team event will include six schools from the Mid-American Conference as well as a handful of other foes familiar to the Eagles. This season Morehead State has already faced three squads in the field: Marshall, Detroit-Mercy and Kent State. Three of the women's teams and one of the men's programs are ranked in the current U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association regional polls.
"The teams are mostly MAC schools," Dixon said. "It should be a tough meet."
MSU has competed in indoor track and field at Bowling Green in 2017, but Friday will be the first time the Eagles will have run cross country there since Dixon has been affiliated with the program either as a coach or an athlete in 2012.
The team got a chance to see the course several weeks ago.
Kind of.
"It's really flat. We drove past it on our way to Michigan State (for the Spartan Invitational)," Dixon said. "It's got one big hill. It looks like it's man-made."
Friday will be the final tune-up for the postseason which begins in two weeks with the Ohio Valley Conference Championship. Spots are on the line for those who will be among the 10 entries that will toe the line for the OVC meet and then the seven runners who will represent the Blue and Gold in the NCAA Southeast Regional on Friday, Nov. 11 at the E.P. "Tom" Sawyer State Park in Louisville.
"This week we've had a tough workout. We're going to go out there compete and then get over it," Dixon said. "Conference is coming up in two weeks and that's the important one, so we'll start our taper after this (weekend)."
The team has been training full force in anticipation of the upcoming races.
"We've been doing mile repeats at race pace and at a high volume too," Dixon said. "A few people will feel that coming this week (at Bowling Green), but we've got to do it now because we're two weeks out from conference and it takes our body a while to adjust to it."
Dixon will enter 16 men and 13 women on Friday.
"A few people are tired from this past workout. It'll give them another meet under their belts and then we'll shift to conference and region for the start of postseason," Dixon said. "It will be the final meet for some runners as we can only take 10 to conference and seven for regionals."
Sophomore
Garrett Watts, junior
Kyle Embry and sophomore
Lucy Singleton were the standouts at Morehead State's last competition, the Live in Lou Classic on Oct. 1. Watts was 23rd in the 8K race in 24:49.7, with Embry next in 24th in 24:50.3. Singleton led the MSU women after placing 65th in the 5K event in a time of 18:51.5. As a team, MSU finished 24th in the men's contest and 37th among the women's field.
Friday's live race results can be found at the link:
http://live.finishtiming.com/meets/486505/events.
As has been the case all year, the two Eagle teams will take a week off before returning to competition at the OVC Championship on Friday, Oct. 29 at Tennessee Tech.
