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Some people thought first-year head coach David Smith would be handicapped by his late hiring last spring, but showing his interest in the position and loyalty to his alma mater, he hit the recruiting trails even before he knew the job was his. And while he didn’t get the number of athletes he wanted, the quality was good.
Knowing that high school girls tend to make up their minds regarding where they are going to attend college earlier than boys, Smith went after the boys hard, was determined to field at least a scoring team of five runners on the men’s side. With junior Bryan Grosbach the only one male runner returning, to reach that goal, he brought in four freshmen, each of whom had been a state medalist in cross country and/or track during their high school career.
While the men were unable to field the minimum five runners to score as a team in three meets due to various injuries, they did the other five outings, capped by a fourth place finish at the KCAC Championships.
“One of my goals for the season was to have a scoring team at the conference meet. We did that, and better yet, we placed in the top half of the team race,” said Smith. “With only five runners, our margin for error or injury was non-existent. But, we were able to get through the season in pretty good shape.”
Individually, freshman Jeff Ford led the Bulldogs’ all but two races. Ford, along with fellow freshmen Jacob Merrick, Andrew Paull, and Chad Richert found the increase in race distance from the prep 5-kilometers to the collegiate 8k to be a challenge, but a challenge they met, improving their personal bests by an average of better than two minutes per man during the course of the season.
Ford, Merrick, and Richert each ran their season best time at the Southwestern Invitational/Mid-States Classic in mid-October. Grosbach and Paull posted their bests at the Oklahoma State University Cowboy Jamboree two weeks earlier, where Bryan was the first Bulldog across the line.
Jeff Ford’s season was highlighted by his 15th place finish at the KCAC meet, earning him honorable mention All-KCAC honors.
Working to peak for the KCAC meet, held the final week of October, the Bulldogs did just that, coming home fourth out of the nine teams competing. While the level of difficulty of Ottawa University course’s added 1 to 1 ½ minutes to most runners’ times, every Bulldog ran the distance within 2 minutes of the season best.
“With a year of running the longer distance, and a good year of base work between now and next fall, the possibilities for this group of young men are almost boundless. They’ve found they can make the adjustment to the distance, and what it takes to compete at this level. By adding to our numbers, we can make practices more competitive, and with a gradually increased work load in training, we should be ready to make another step up the KCAC ladder.”
For the Lady Bulldogs, two runners, Mandy Shobe and Bethany Lobmeyer, returned from 2003.
During the course of the season Lobmeyer lowered her season best by better than two minutes, also run at Southwestern. While a foot injury kept Shobe out of action for two meets, she too ran her season best at the Southwestern Invitational/Mid-State Classic.
“Like the guys, we have to get the numbers up with our ladies. We want to have scoring teams in both divisions at every meet we attend. While we will lose Mandy (a senior) that means we have to retain the core of young runners we have, and bring in the number and quality of runners to make our practices competitive and our team more competitive come race time.”
