Since the start of fall term, the team has participated in four meets. The first of them being the Loyola Wolfpack Invitational hosted by Andy Canegitta, head cross country coach.
The female division finished in first place with the male division finishing in third. However, since the first meet the team hasn’t produced the same results.
Both the men’s and women’s divisions have placed fifth or below in all meets following the Wolfpack Invitational.
Canegitta said, “On the women’s side our top five runners haven’t ran together in one meet since the first meet. In every meet, one of our top six is not 100 percent either due to injury or sickness. Madeline and Hannah ran together for the first time the last meet, but we were missing Lauren [who is] one of the top five,” he said.
But according to Joilyn Hollies, sociology sophomore, the weather has been a significant factor in the team’s performance.
She said the scores they have received the past three meets haven’t reflected the team’s true ability.
“Well the weather has been bad; that’s New Orleans for you. So far we don’t know how to compete on anything but a dry course. All of our courses have been kind of soggy and we’re not used to that,” she said.
“A lot of our competitors come from out of state and haven’t gotten used to it. Competing against schools like Xavier who may have more people from here on their team won’t have the best results,” Hollies said.
Justin Fecke, general business sophomore, who has competed in three of the four meets, also cites the weather as one of the factors in the team’s performance.
“The guys haven’t won any meets and the girls have only one win because we’ve been running on soggy courses. They’ve just been really wet and that makes our times slower,” Fecke said.
Hollies said that consistency may also contribute to team performance.
“I guess we can try to push through it as much as we can when it gets soggy outside. And really it’s all about consistency,” Hollies said. “When everyone shows up to practices and meets, me included, and we have larger numbers that’s when we tend to do better,” she said.
“We just have to train harder and go to practice every day,” Fecke said.
The team hopes to get past this streak and look forward to finishing the season with a bang.
The runners believe they will produce better scores and each runner has been working towards receiving a bid to conference.
“I think we’re going to do well. I can’t promise any victories or anything, but hopefully we can make it to conference,” Fecke said.
“If not the team as a whole, at least a few people from the team would be great,” he said.
Although they haven’t performed well in the past three meets, Canegitta feels the team has put in the effort to qualify for the Gulf Coast Athletic Conference meet.
“We’ve been training hard to prepare for conference. Our goal is to win conference which is three weeks away. We hope to be fresh and ready by that time. The races are our training, they are not our top priority,” he said.
The next competition will be the University of Mobile Invitational in Mobile, Ala. on Saturday, Oct. 24.
Carlyn Worthy can be reached at [email protected]