While the number of runners is lower than normal, the team’s spirit is still up.
The Concordia Stingers cross-country teams just ran at their first competition of the season, in the McGill Invitational that took place on Sept. 7.
On the men’s side of the 6 km run, the Stingers finished in eighth place out of 14 participating teams. The women’s team for Concordia was unable to score in the event because they did not meet the required number of runners.
The cross-country team has been fighting against a shortage of runners since the end of last season. Skye Robinson, one of the co-captains of the Stingers, shared that finding players this off-season was exceptionally difficult.
“I think that we definitely didn’t get as many recruits this year as we were expecting,” Robinson said. “I’m not sure the reason — maybe just the lack of knowledge that the team exists and that people can just come and try out.”
In cross-country competitions, a participating team needs at least five runners in order to be considered eligible to score. At the McGill Invitational, the men’s team had exactly five runners while the women’s team only had two.
Injuries have complicated matters even more, as the women’s team is currently dealing with two injuries. This has made it that much more difficult for the teams to reach the minimum number of runners for a given event.
Robinson said that head coach Justin Pfefferle’s message to the team is to gain experience this season and to come out of the gate flying next season. With the track and field season starting in December, Robinson hopes that more runners will join.
As a captain on the team, Robinson believes she also holds responsibility for keeping the current roster performing at a high level, whether or not they are scoring in competitions.
“I don’t think I did anything really differently than my previous captain before me,” Robinson said. “We really want to lift the team spirit up — that’s kind of our role as captains. When the spirits are down at practice, it’s kind of our job to say: ‘Okay, guys, let’s go, let’s lift this back up.”
While team performance is always key to success, Robinson added that she always encourages her teammates to make time for school. She said that having a well-balanced schedule with school and training is something all her teammates strive for.
With this being her final year at Concordia University, Robinson said that the main message she wants to share with students is that the cross-country team is as relevant as any other varsity sport.
“One of our main goals, since we are kind of seen as one of the underdogs, is to keep reaching to expand the program,” Robinson said. “We [want people] saying: ‘Yeah, there’s actually people who do cross-country and track and field at Concordia.”
