After a two-week break, the Tennessee cross-country team is preparing for the upcoming SEC Championship this weekend. Since their races at the Blazer Classic and Arturo Barrios Invitational, the Tennessee runners have focused on training for this first race of the postseason.
“We had some great workouts this past week,” head coach Beth Alford-Sullivan said. “Tuesday and Friday, we worked extremely hard running some great preparation workouts specifically for the SEC Championships. We had a high mileage week last week with a lot of competitive spirit within the workouts.”
Both the men’s and women’s team will be participating in this upcoming race and are hoping to make an impact in the SEC. With this season’s statistics and their current frontrunners, Tennessee has the ability to run confidently with their fellow conference teams.
With assets like senior Zach Long, the postseason is currently looking up for the Vols.
“This postseason is unlike most that we’ve had,” Long said. “I would tell people to expect Tennessee to go out there and fight and work hard for every single point to the finish line. I think we’ve given ourselves a good opportunity to go out and compete with the best teams in the SEC, and I think we’ve also positioned ourselves to go to a National Championship.”
Tennessee is looking to runners like Long to lead the way to a national title. Alford-Sullivan explained what goals she has for men’s team in this upcoming postseason.
“The men last year were top-five and have the ability to reproduce that again this year,” Alford-Sullivan said. “We look at our competition last year as a breakthrough top-five, this year as an opportunity to do even better within the top five. We’ve got a handful of seniors that will be racing and to see them put together their final SEC championship and produce the results that make them very proud.”
On the women’s side, Tennessee is led by several runners.
“For the ladies, we have finally put together a team that has some great competitive components to it,” Alford-Sullivan said. “We have some great frontrunning going on with Megan Murray and Katie Thronson. I think if everybody goes out there and does their job, they’re going to make a significant jump in the SEC. With them we’re really focusing on the process of getting through the 6k.”
The Vols will race this Friday, October 25 at Auburn, Alabama in their first round of postseason matches against fellow SEC teams.
