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The CSC Eagle Newspaper – Chadron, NE
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The CSC Eagle Newspaper – Chadron, NE
Football

Change paces cross country team’s goals

Guest Author
A group of players run through drills in early August. The Eagles play an intra-squad scrimmage at 11 a.m. Saturday at Elliot Field. The team opens its season on the road Sept. 5 at Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla. — Photo by Ashley Swanson
A group of players run through drills in early August. The Eagles play an intra-squad scrimmage at 11 a.m. Saturday at Elliot Field. The team opens its season on the road Sept. 5 at Missouri University of Science and Technology, Rolla. — Photo by Ashley Swanson

As the cross country team gets ready to start a new season, the runners will notice a few changes from previous years. The team has a new distance coach this year, in the form of Coach Brian Medigovich.

Medigovich came to Chadron State via Head Coach Ryan Baily who convinced Medigovich to make the move.

Medigovich, who competed his entire college career at Adams State College, Alamosa, Colo., where he graduated in 2010,  has been running cross country for about 15 years.

He earned the title of All-American 13 times and captured one National Championship.

After graduating from college he coached at Adams State and at a community college in California, he said. Medigovich, who’s competed in RMAC meets in Chadron, said he has always liked small towns.

Baily said he’s glad to have him.

“I’m extremely excited about Coach Medigovich guiding our distance runners this year,” Baily said, “and I’m very impressed with the condition of our newcomers and the returning athletes. It should be a good year.”

Along those same lines Medigovich made a few comments about the team’s upcoming season, which opens Sept. 6 on the road at South Dakota School of Mines, Rapid City.

Medigovich said he and Baily hope the team moves up this season to the mid-pack of the RMAC, and added that the conference is among the toughest. He said the men’s and women’s teams will face conference opponents packed with good talent. Medigovich said he hopes to be somewhere along the fourth or fifth spots in the conference rankings.

Medigovich said Ashley Riesen, senior of Chadron, is one of the runners from the women’s team to keep an eye on. She is a fifth-year competitor and is motivated to do well, he said.

Other returning athletes from the women’s team should be watched carefully as well, he said, adding that there are several talented freshman who have the potential to finish among the top seven on the team and earn a spot on the travel squad.

On the men’s side, Medigovich said he and the coaches have been impressed with sophomore Doug Harris. He said Harris has assumed a leadership role this year and has done a great job.

This season both teams have undergone big changes from previous years and the coaches are expecting them to compete better, and perhaps generate individual national qualifiers. Medigovich also noted that coaching will be different. Training will see the distance runners logging higher mileage than what they  might remember from the past, he said.

After the season opener in Rapid City, the team’s next meet is home, beginning at 9 a.m. Sept. 14. The following week, the team travels to Lincoln for the Woody Greeno Invite.

The season’s first few meets are usually training sessions for important competitions later in the year, Medigovich said.

The Oct. 5 Chile Pepper Invite in Fayetteville, Ark., opens the “October Season”  – a time when runners begin competing in championship meets. Placing in those meets, Medigovich said, is the main goal of any team or individual.

The RMAC Championships are Oct. 26 in Silver City, N.M.; the NCAA South Central Region Championships are slated for Nov. 9 at Canyon, Texas; and the NCAA D-II National Championship are set for Nov. 23, in Spokane, Wash.