Vanderbilt cross country coach Steve Keith has a consistent message for his group of young men’s runners heading into Saturday’s Pre-Nationals.
Stay close, boys.
That will be the main point of emphasis for the up-and-coming Commodores, the Southeastern Conference’s only non-scholarship program that has slowly attained better cohesiveness over the first three meets.
“The guys are showing it better and better in practice,” Keith said. The further into the race we can get everyone together, the closer our time gaps are going to be at the end of the race.”
The men will run in the open race that will feature some of the toughest competition in the country.
Sophomore Jenner Kizer continued his strong year with a 25:36.60 in the 8K race (a 5:16 mile pace) at their last race, the Louisville Invitational on Oct. 3.The fifth Commodore in the top five finished over 90 seconds after him, however, to drive up Vanderbilt’s team score for a 30th-place finish out of 38 teams.
They know they can do better on Saturday.
“Jenner's established himself, and I'm hoping that Thomas Davis can bridge that gap a little bit,” Keith said. “We'll ask them to compete as hard as they can and see how it goes.”
Part of the struggle of getting consistent packing, says Keith, is the fact that seven of the nine runners are underclassmen. While 5K races were the norm in high school, the races at the collegiate level are nearly two miles longer.
“It’s a pretty hard transition,” Kizer said.
Freshmen Billy Malmed and Chris Baker and sophomore Kyle Rewick have also shown steady improvement, and Davis, a senior has been a mainstay in the top five as well.
The trick now for is that five to be one.
“During all our workouts, we’ve been trying to group up. Lots of times we’ll take turns doing the repeats,” Kizer said. “We’re trying to translate that into the race, especially at the beginning of the race. It’s important to get out in front of the pack.
“I think that our best success would be if we could group up. As a team, we can easily pick off a few teams in front of us if we can group up and get them one by one.”
