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Coaches' Excited About Upcoming Season
OREM, Utah - An experienced and talented group of runners has cross country coach Scott Houle excited about the upcoming season. On the men-s side, five of the top seven runners return from last year. While the women-s team has only one runner with experience, Houle likes the talent of his freshmen and junior college transfers. -As a team we are a lot more talented, especially on the boys- side,- Houle said. -We kept all our runners. On the girls we lost our top two runners. I feel better about our team as a whole because everyone is pretty close to each other.- Leading the way on the men-s team is Mark Lott and Joe Bendoski. Lott was the top runner last year as a sophomore and ended the season by finishing third at the Independent championships. -They are in a lot better shape,- Houle said. -With the new kids coming in it has allowed them to have more people to train with.- Other runners with experience are Peter Holm, Mike Vick and Ryan Gurr. Two freshmen that the Wolverine coaches expect to contribute this year are Spencer Evensen and Jacob Buhler. Evensen competed on national championship teams at Mountain View and placed 14 th in the Nike National Championships last year. Buhler was one of the top runners in North Dakota and Houle says he has trained here all summer with the likes of Lott and Bendoski. -He knows he can run with them,- Houle said. On the women-s end, Kirsten Barney and Becca Meier Poppinga will be the two runners that will be counted on to carry the load. -Those are the two with experience,- Houle said. -The biggest thing is they have been their and done that. They know what it takes to get ready for races. It-s a pretty intimating site when you get on the race and there is 500 athletes lined up. They can show our freshmen how things work.- Following Barney and Poppinga, the women-s team is stacked with talented youth. Houle has eight freshmen, five juniors and one sophomore on the roster. -The youth will be our biggest obstacle to overcome,- Houle said. -They were all very successful high school athletes out of good programs. They have shown the desire to be good runners at the college level.- Houle looks for freshmen, Karinne Bentley, Ashley Evans and Kim Rowberry to have an early impact along with transfers Keshia Bodine and Tricia Lennberg. This year the Wolverines have a nice schedule with instate and out of state opponents. They open the season on Sept 10 at the BYU Autumn Classic. They also compete in meets at Montana State and SUU. On September 24, the Wolverines will run against many of top runners in the country at the Roy Griak meet. -That will be our biggest race,- Houle said. -It will have all the top teams in the country from all the biggest conferences. The fun thing about it is that we will race all the schools at one time.- The final meet of the year will be the Independent Championships. Last year the women finished fourth and the men placed fifth. In a preseason poll amongst the Independent schools this year, the women are ranked fourth while the men are ranked sixth. -Were excited about our schedule,- Houle said. -Every race we go to will have very talented teams. The schedule is really a fun one.-
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