The Milligan College men’s and women’s cross country teams ran in the Appalachian Athletic Conference cross country championship on Nov 9.
Milligan’s men finished with a final score of 30 points, making them the 2019 AAC conference champions. The lady buffs were the runner-ups of the team standings, finishing just two points behind the top nationally-ranked women from Savannah College Art and Design Atlanta.
In the men’s race, juniors Nathan Baker and Tim Thacker finished first and second with times of 25 minutes and one second and 25 minutes and five seconds, respectively.
The Buffs had five top 15 finishes to help the team win the conference title with an overall time of two hours seven minutes and 51.
“The course is a great course. It is not the fastest course, nor is it terribly slow,” Thacker said. “I quite enjoyed the finish, as it was a very long straightaway. Being more of a mid-distance guy in track, I love having a long finish to pick off guys at the end.” With the long straightaway to his advantage, Thacker ran himself into second place overall finish in the conference.
The Milligan women’s top runners were sophomore Bekah Owen in sixth with a time of 18 minutes and two seconds, and 13 seconds later sophomore Gabrielle Mardis crossed the line finishing in eighth overall. The Lady buffs had six top 15 place finishes in the meet.
“I’m really proud of the team as a whole,” Owen said. “We accomplished what we needed to at conference, and now we’re just a plane ride away from Nationals!”
Both teams went into the meet with confidence. As sophomore Avery DeWolf said, “We were pretty sure of our spot coming in, and we knew that we would be in the top two if we ran decently.”
The teams’ main objective after the conference meet, according to Owen, is to “get dialed in.”
“We will be practicing all week (for nationals), ‘tightening the screws’ as coach likes to say,” DeWolf added.
The NAIA National Cross Country Championships will take place Nov. 22 in Vancouver Washington. All times, placing and results from the Buffs conference meet are posted on the TFRRS website.