VIDEO: Luke Greer previews SAC Championships
WINGATE, N.C.- The Carson-Newman cross country team will travel to North Carolina to face conference rivals at the South Atlantic Conference Championships on Oct. 26th.
The women's side has been led by sophomore Rachel Strayer (Murfreesboro, TN) this season, as she has been the top finisher at every event but the Wingate Invitational which she missed due to injury.
Graduate student Conal McCambridge has been the frontman for every event this campaign.
"The whole year we've been working towards this conference meet," Carson-Newman acting cross country coach Luke Greer said.
The team has focused on building a combination of speed and physical strength since arriving in Mossy Creek in August.
"I think our primary focus throughout the season has been 'let's work on our strength, and let's get our strength as good as possible'" Greer said. "So I think every session we've done has led to that and we managed to get some speed working with the races so I'm really looking forward to seeing how the training comes together and the race comes together and hopefully we're peaking at the right moment and we'll just be hitting this race hard and doing our best."
For a team that has multiple freshmen on both sides, Greer believes this race experience will be vital for their development.
"It's good for them to get this under their belt and see how the conference meet works and how competitive it is," Greer said. "These are the races that we live for. This is the reason why we run, to get in these races and just see how well we compete."
The Eagles will be running on familiar territory, as the team competed on these same Wingate grounds back on Sept. 21st.
"We know it's a tough course," Greer said. "That's why our focus this year has been on strength. It's hilly, if the weather hits it wrong it's going to be wet and muddy, it's going to be a really tough course."
Carson-Newman will face off against division rivals such as Queens University, the only SAC team in the top-25 nationally as they currently stand as the 18th-ranked team in the nation.
"These races are a lot of fun," Greer said. "They're a lot smaller, so like I said you know who you're competing against so I'm really looking forward to seeing our athletes use that motivation to get pumped and be like 'okay we want to beat L-R as a team, we want to beat Tusculum as a team, let's go out and beat them.'"
Be sure to keep up with the C-N cross country team across Carson-Newman's social media platforms and on cneagles.com.
