When the Ohio cross-country team heads to Cedarville Friday for the All-Ohio Championships, it will be accompanied by a handful of freshmen women with high expectations.
Almost half of Ohio's seven runners on the women's side for this meet are in their first year in Athens.
Melissa Thompson, Allison Stillwell and Emily Pifer have competed well enough in each of Ohio's first three meets that coach Clay Calkins penciled them into the varsity lineup for All-Ohio, the most important meet of the season thus far.
We had high hopes for these athletes when they came in the door
Calkins said. They did the work in the offseason - the offseason being this summer - and arrived in good shape and were able to get into that top seven top nine position.
As long as everyone stays healthy, we'll have quite a few freshmen traveling to the big meets here coming up.
The meet changed locations this year as it is usually held at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware
Ohio.
The change had to do with the difficulty of the course at Ohio Wesleyan
which Calkins described as more hilly than the course in Cedarville.
With some other big meets in the near future for a lot of teams, they'll welcome the forgiving course (at Cedarville), Calkins said.
The meets on the horizon to which Calkins referred are Pre-Nationals
the Mid-American Conference Championships and NCAA Regionals.
One team that the Bobcats won't have to worry about Friday is Ohio State
whose men and women are both ranked in the top seven in the Great Lakes Region of the U.S. Track and Field Cross Country Coaches Association poll. But just because the Buckeyes won't be in attendance doesn't mean Ohio will have an easy path to the top.
On the men's side
Ohio will go up against several teams ranked in the top 15 in the Great Lakes Region. That list includes Miami
Toledo and Akron.
The women
who are ranked at No. 11
will compete alongside other ranked opponents such as Toledo
