Cross country set to host A-10 Championships

The men’s and women’s cross country teams will host the rest of the Atlantic 10 Conference Saturday morning at Belmont Plateau in the A-10 Championships, the program’s final one before moving to the Big East Conference next season.

Having the meet at Temple’s practice course is an advantage coach Adam Bray hopes will be “huge.”

“I expect that it’s going to be pretty muddy and sloppy,” Bray said. “It’s been wet the past couple weeks, and there have been high school meets there so it’s being run on. That’s another advantage that goes in our favor because we know what the course has to offer, and we’ve done workouts on it.”

Junior Will Kellar, who led the team at last year’s A-10’s in Charlotte with a 36th place finish, voiced a similar opinion to that of Bray’s. Additionally, he is glad the team doesn’t have to travel as far as it has in years past.

“I think it’s going to be to our benefit to race there,” Kellar said. “We’ve been training there, pretty much all semester. And not only have we been training there, but it’s so close. It’s really convenient for us to not have to travel half way across the state or up and down the East Coast to get to the meet.”

Senior Rayna Kratchman says the team is looking to make more of an impact at this year’s race.

“I think definitely being a senior and the other runners on our team are very motivated to have the best race of our time at Temple and to hopefully do the best that we have at A-10’s thus far because we haven’t really made that impact on A-10’s yet,” Kratchman said. “But I think this year we’re going to come through and prepare for the Big East, and show that we’re ready.”

Redshirt senior Travis Mahoney and sophomore Jenna Dubrow have led their teams in every race they have participated in this year, and are the favorites to do so again tomorrow.

Last year’s A-10’s were won by La Salle on both the men’s and women’s sides, while Temple placed 10th and 12th, respectively.

The women’s 5k race will kick off at 10 a.m., while the men’s 8k is set for a 10:45 a.m. start time.

Avery Maehrer