Team learns lessons in Texas, three runners place in competition against 13 teams

Ward Sutlive, Campus Carrier asst. sports editor

Berry College’s women’s cross country team came in sixth place at the Stormy Seas conference meet in Georgetown, Texas. 

Seven out of 25 runners attended, with runners Ella Williams, Abby Reams and Katie Frankman scoring the highest for their team. Williams came in at 18th place, while Reams came in at 33rd. Frankman came in at 44th place.

“I’m really excited about how our season started off,” Madeline Burke, a senior team member on the women’s cross country team, said. “I think that was a really good early season indicator of how we are fitness-wise coming off the summer, and we’re all just super excited to get out there and get the season rolling.”

This was the team’s first meet in Texas, and they took some time to explore the course where they’ll be running many of their meets. 

Paul Deaton, head coach of the women’s cross country team, described the course as being moderately difficult with a single loop being one and a half miles. The team ran it twice for a 5K, which is different from the 6K races that they normally run. 

“As far as hills and footing and all that, it was fine.” Deaton said.

The team dynamic has been very strong this season, and all of the team members have been meshing well with each other. The arrival of freshmen has added a lot of new members to the team. The freshmen girls have been working to adapt and work with the rest of the team, and are looking forward to the rest of the season. 

“All of the girls are very excited for this season and what we can do together,” Katie Frankman, a senior player on the team said.  

According to Frankman, team morale has been high, and the team feels good about their first race. They see it as a way for them to see where they are in their training and plan to build off of that in the future. They know they still have some things to work on but are ready to overcome those challenges. 

This year, Southwestern University joined the conference, giving the Berry cross country team a new team to race against. The team has been monitoring southwestern very closely and seeing how they compare to its team. A rivalry of sorts has formed between the two teams, since Southwestern came in third place at the meet. 

“Southwestern finished third, and we were sixth, so they beat us, so we’re going to have to do some work to catch them before the end of the season,” Deaton said. 

Many members of the team, especially seniors, are making sure to set goals for themselves. Frankman wants to do her best and end her time with the cross country team on a high note. 

“For me personally, I’m a senior [and] it’s my last cross country season, so I have some pretty high goals for myself,” Frankman said. “I want to see that I’ve gained fitness and given it my all.”

One thing that the team does in the early season is maintain an even speed throughout the race. 

They do this in order to build their endurance. In the races that come later in the season, they use more speed in general. This strategy helped them deal with the Texas heat.

“Typically early in the season, we don’t go all out in our races.” Burke said. “We try to work on more controlled tempo effort that kind of works down into a race effort, and I think everyone executed their race plan, or tempo to race plan well.”

The team always makes sure to give it their all during practice, especially before big races. It’s for this reason that Deaton gives his runners certain exercises that will help them in meets. These exercises focus on aerobic conditioning and help build speed and endurance for the runners. The exercises also prepare them for the environments of other courses. These warm-ups are used before meets as well and go on for about 15 minutes.

“Most of our emphasis in the early season is on aerobic conditioning, which means a lot of healthy miles, and we emphasize that in our race plan as well,” Deaton said. 

The team is feeling optimistic about this year’s season. They are expecting to do well in the conference championships since they were the conference champions last year. The team plans to do their best and see what they can do working together. 

Students can go see the women’s cross country team’s next meet Oct. 6 at 9:45a.m. It will be the next and only cross country meet that will be happening at Berry’s campus.