With practice officially starting on Aug. 14, Wayne State College cross country runners will be putting in the work this fall.
Similar to the women’s team, Wayne State College will have 11 members out with a balance of upperclassmen and quite a few newer student-athletes.
Head coach Marlon Brink came to Wayne State College during the summer of 2000 and hasn’t left.
Coach Brink said they’ll really get after it and get going once everybody is together.
“It’s a lot easier to train as a group than what it is individually over the summertime,” said Brink. “Most of them are back at their hometowns and usually training by themselves or maybe with some of their high school former teammates. But that’s never quite the same as having your college teammates.”
Quentin Dryer will be one of the top returners along with Brandon Mitzel and Brady Franzen.
Coach Brink added some of the younger student-athletes will be tested.
“They go from running 5K in high school up to 8K in college and even 10K for the regional and national meet,” Brink added. “It’s a bigger jump than the women’s see. The women just go from 5K up to 6K and for most of them, that’s an easy transition. But when you’re almost doubling your mileage for the guys it’s a lot tougher.”
Coach Brink will look for a mid-distance guy of Andrew Wyllie to battle for a top seven spot. Transfers include Brody Lucas from Indian Hills Community College as well as Ethan Ramos who transferred from Allen Community College.
Coach Brink highlighted a couple freshmen who could step into a lead role.
“We’ve got Gannon Walsh is from Pender, NE and he’s been a consistent high placer in a lot of the local meets here in high school last year,” Brink mentioned. Then also Ethan Walters, he’s a freshman is from Elkhorn, NE. He had a good season last year in both cross country and track.”
Wayne State College will put the runners to the test to see what kind of shape they’re in during a 50-minute run on the track. This will allow student-athletes to set their pace.
Similar to the women’s side, Aug.ana has a good team each year, Minesota Duluth surprised some people last year and will have a veteran team.
“With our guys a good mix of returners and new guys hopefully we can get into the top half of the conference there as well,” said Brink. “Kind of surprise some people and have a good year overall.”
MSU Moorhead, Minnesota State-Mankato and University of Sioux Falls will be among top NSIC men’s cross country team.
Around 25 – 30 teams are signed up to compete in the Aug.ana University Twilight from the Yankton Trails Soccer Complex in Sioux Falls, South Dakota on Sept. 6. The men’s race will start at 9 p.m. with the women’s race to open the night at 8:30 p.m.
Once the indoor track and field season rolls around, Coach Brink said it’s like waiting for Christmas with the new indoor track.
“Every day I take a look at it to see what’s happening and I know we’re getting closer to getting there,” Brink mentioned. “We’ve actually started to schedule some meets. So, we’re going to plan to have an indoor meet December 7…then we’re planning to have another one after Christmas break on January 11 and potentially a third one on February.”
This will allow Wayne State College to host home meets with not many of the 300-meter indoor tracks around.
