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The Nebraska men's and women's cross country team continues its 2014 season Sunday at the Big Ten Championships in Iowa City, Iowa. The talent-rich competition will begin with the women's race at starting at 10:45 a.m., with the men's race set to follow.
Nebraska Head Coach David Harris hopes that some of the training the team has been doing the past two weeks will pay off at the conference championship meet.
“I think we are in pretty good shape on the men's side, coming off a meet where I think we ran one of our best races of the year certainly (second place, Bradley Classic). I think it was something to go into the Big Ten with,” Harris said. “We have had some good practices, we continue to have two freshmen in our top five, which is something that is a little scary going into the conference championship.”
Harris added that the key for the Husker men this season is to beat some teams, as NU has placed 11th in the previous two conference championship meets.
“I know our freshmen are talented and doing well, in Austin Post and Alec Sery, we are really happy to have them, so I think the men are in good shape, we have to try and beat some teams,” Harris said. “The key right now is to beat some teams, because we have not done that.
On the women's side, Harris expects sophomore Anna Peer to continue her impressive season, as Peer has been the No.1 runner on the women's team at every meet this season.
“We have one front runner on the women's team with Anna Peer, she is just on another level right now, then we have some freshmen in our top five,” he said. “Like I said before, you always are weary leaning on freshmen at such a high caliber meet, so some of them may take some lumps and that is ok. If they go out and contribute like they have been, then they can hold their heads high and know they helped our team.”
Harris believes that this weekends competition will be huge for the Husker cross country program, noting that it is key to see improvement in the results from the past two seasons.
“This is a key race for our program, yes we have to show improvement and continue to improve, I think the most important thing is that you beat more teams. We have not done that here in the past two seasons, so that is our goal heading into this meet.”
Check back at Huskers.com Sunday afternoon for a full meet recap.