Coach Peterson's Comments Entering The American Championship
Oct 30, 2015 | Cross Country
On his expectations for his team over the weekend
"Both teams have worked very hard to get to this point in the season and we're all very excited about getting into the postseason. The conference championship marks that date on the schedule that initiates the postseason and championship faze of our schedule. I know that all of our athletes are very excited to be at this point and we're going in with a real optimistic attitude about what we're going to be able to achieve. We're a growing program. We still have a lot of young kids that are running in prominent spots on our team, but the nice thing is that we're developing some consistency even though those kids like Moses [Aloiloi] and Emmanuel [Rotich] on the men's side and Emma [Newton] and Lauren [Bartels] on the women's side are all very young. They're freshmen or sophomores and they've done a great job for us. We're very hopeful that they're going to run well and continue to lead the way they have been all season long. We know that winning a conference championship at this point in our program's development is a tall order, but we do certainly expect to finish in the top half of the conference. We want both teams to put together the best race we've had all season and if we can do that, we expect to finish high."
On the progress his teams have made throughout the 2015 season
"The Pre-National meet two weeks ago had to be a great learning experience for us. I think a lot of the younger athletes that don't have very much experience on our team were a little bit shell shocked by how high of a level of competition that meet was, but they've responded well to that. They've been able to get back into a practice routine and push themselves at an even higher level, and the response has been very positive. It wasn't like, 'Oh my gosh, this is over my head.' They didn't feel that way at all. We've had two very good weeks of practice since then, we're healthy, and our expectations are high."
On getting an opportunity to see some conference foes in earlier meets
"It's helpful. Even as off as we felt we were at the Pre-National meet, we were still able to beat a couple of teams from our conference. That's something to kind of fall back on, but right now it looks like the Tulsa men are the standard right now in our conference and the UConn and SMU women are the two teams that have been the strongest throughout the regular season. But you never know what's going to happen. It's really an exciting meet, it's a wonderful championship to be a part of and we expect our team to respond well to it."
On the weather and terrain at The American Championship playing a factor in the team's performance
"That's something that we've prepared well for. If you look at our schedule, we've been to Seattle, we've been to Pennsylvania and we've been to Louisville. I don't think this meet hosted by East Carolina University is going to be any different than what we've already experienced so I think the team is well prepared for being ready for whatever weather or terrain challenges are going to come. We just want to go up there and beat as many teams as we possibly can."
