By DJ Ramirez | Sports Editor
Baylor cross country will be heading to College Station today to compete in the Texas A&M Invitational after having the week off. The Bears started the season at home in the Bear Twilight Invitational where they took second behind the University of Texas.
Associate head coach Jon Capron said he’s excited to race some new teams, especially the Aggies.
“It’s going to be pretty familiar. There’s a lot of the teams that were at our first meet so that’s going to be nice, but there are some new faces too. I’m kind of excited about being able to balance both of those,” Capron said. “Additionally, Texas A&M is a pretty good match-up for us. We’ve been in the range that I kind of hope to be and so I think that we’re going to match up pretty well with that team and im excited to race them as well because they’re a pretty good squad.”
Aside from the Aggies, Baylor will also run against SMU, TCU, UTRGV, UTSA and West Texas A&M.
Both the men and women will run slightly longer races than in the opening meet with the women’s race being bumped up to a 5K and the men running their first true distance race at 8K. Capron noted that this race would serve as preparation for longer races further in the season along building on workouts.
”We’ve had a lot more time to just build in a longer workout volume. That should help with that race distance popping up a little bit so I hope they’re able to react positively to the added distance. Based on their workouts, they should be able to,” Capron said.
The women’s team will have more runners back in the pack after having to sit some of their team members out for Bear Twilight. According to Capron, seniors Gabby Satterlee and Hana Marsheck will run be running their first meet today.
Juniors Connor Laktasic and TJ Sugg led the men in a strong performance during the opening meet where the Bears kept pace with the Longhorns.
The men’s team will have to run two men short, however, but freshman Cal Johnston said that the field will still be similar to the last meet and that they hope to be back in full force later in the fall.
“I don’t think it will change too much. Obviously we got two guys sick right now and it’ll obviously affect us but this early in the year I don’t think make too big of an impact for the meets that matter later on in the year,” Johnston said.
Senior Lindsay Walton spearheaded the women’s team at Bear Twilight with her third place finish. The women’s team will have more runners back in the pack after having to sit some of their team members out for Bear Twilight. According to Capron, seniors Gabby Satterlee and Hana Marsheck will run be running their first meet today.
With the first week rankings coming out on Monday, the women hope to improve off their successful start and No. 6 preseason regional ranking, but no matter the result, sophomore Mazie Larsen said that the women will just run the best race they can.
“We would like to run our best but it is still the beginning of the year so it’s fine if they underestimate us. We’re fine with that and it will be cool to prove ourselves no matter what we’re ranked,” Larsen said.
