By Taylor Nigrelli
Assistant Sports Editor
The men’s and women’s cross country teams traveled to Notre Dame Thursday to participate in the National Catholic Championships after finishing second in the Little Three Invitational two weeks ago. The race, featuring over 30 catholic colleges from all over the country, is set to go off at 5 p.m. today.
Women’s coach Bob Macfarlane believes his teams will have more success in this meet than they did in all of last year’s races.
“Since we’re all healthy, I’d like to see us in the thick of things,” Macfarlane said. “We shouldn’t be at the bottom anymore; we should be right in the mix. The course is a little bit flatter so hopefully we’ll see some faster times.”
Sophomore Nick Masiello thinks the positive momentum from the first meet will propel the Bonnies to a solid performance at Notre Dame.
The 36-team field is a far cry from the Little Three Invitational field of 32 runners. Junior Kady Weisner says this difference is a positive.
“It’s better in the sense that there are so many people that you‘ll never be in “no man’s land” at any point in the race,” Weisner said. “There will always be a race going on. There will always be a girl next to you, someone to push you the entire way.”
“We’re all excited from the last finish,” Masiello said. “We’ve carried a positive mentality to practice ever since we beat Niagara.”
The win over Niagara has also improved the team’s confidence for Friday’s meet, according to Masiello.
“Niagara’s a middle of the road team,” Masiello said. “There will be several teams of that caliber at Notre Dame.”
Masiello also believes the performance at the Little Three Invitational has even affected the team’s in practice style.
“Sometimes tempo runs can be a couple seconds slow, but now that we beat Niagara, more guys are trying to go after each other,” Masiello said. “It’s like we’re racing in practice; guys are trying to hit their times five or six seconds faster knowing we can have success.”
The Bonnies head to Notre Dame with relatively young teams. Both squads have only one active junior (two juniors on the men’s team are out for the season with injuries) and there are no seniors. Each team has four freshman runners who made their presence known in last week’s meet.
Nick Konoyopskyj placed second for the men’s team while Kerry Caher took the second spot for the women’s team. Junior captain Terrance Petty isn’t discouraged by the team’s lack of experience, however, and believes the Bonnies can compete.
“We’re going to go in there with a good attitude,” Petty said. “And we’re going to finish in the top half of teams.”
