Sports

Cross country competes at large events at Louisville

The Tennessee Tech Men’s Cross-Country team will head to Louisville, Ky. this weekend to compete in the 13th Annual Greater Louisville Cross-Country Classic along with seven other Ohio Valley Conference teams.

After an impressive start to the season, finishing first in the Carolina Invitational and second in the Indiana Open, the team heads into this meet after finishing 11th overall at the Commodore Classic last month.

“Honestly the Commodore Classic was not a great race for us. We were missing our number three and number four man which cost us quite a few points,” said sophomore Brennan Huber.

This weekend’s meet will be unlike any other race so far this season for the Golden Eagles due to the amount of competition involved.

The Greater Louisville Classic will feature over 115 different colleges, including eight teams from the OVC.

“This will be the most challenging race Tech has probably ever ran in,” said Huber. “The amount of competition will be unlike any other race we have ever ran in. We will be facing a lot of big name schools, so the opportunity for personal bests are almost guaranteed.”

The event is so large that the men’s 8K race will be split into three different start times with over 40 teams competing in the group with Tech.

The key to success for this weekend’s competition is all in the training.

“We have had the past couple weekends off in which training has been incredibly difficult,” Huber said. “However, this week is very laid back so that way we can recover and be 100 percent prepared for this race.”

The Golden Eagles top runner in the Commodore Classic was Geoffrey Sambu who finished with a career-best 8K time of 24:41.63, and finished in fifth place among 250 other runners.

“The challenge for this weekend is that some of the guys on the team got injuries at some point last week and that really pulls us a little behind, but that is not an excuse for us,” said Sambu.

If the Golden Eagles hope to succeed this weekend, they’ll need to pack together.

“We will try to run as a team and ensure everyone finish in good position to earn the team points,” said Sambu.

After this weekend’s race, the Golden Eagles will head to Tallahassee, Fla. to compete in the FSU Invitational on Oct. 11.