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Tigers have MIAA title in sight

10/23/2008

By CONOR NICHOLL

cnicholl@dailynews.net

Jason McCullough has read several posts on blogs and running Web sites about his Fort Hays State University cross country teams' chances at Saturday's Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association Championships.

"Some people discredit Fort Hays," McCullough, the Tigers' fourth-year coach, said. "Some people say, well they have all of these guys, what is going to happen? So there are a lot of questions out there about how well we are going to do.

"As long as they don't know, we come in there, we have a really good chance of surprising them. I really like that," he added.

The Tigers, especially on the men's side, are the great unknown entering Saturday's races at Warrensburg, Mo. The men's 8-kilometer race starts at 10:30 a.m., while the women's 6-kilometer run will begin at 11:30.

The Fort Hays men, picked sixth in the preseason poll, have won back-to-back races in their last two meets, the first victories in major competition in the four-year McCullough era.

However, the Tigers have purposely not raced against MIAA competition all season and multiple coaches don't see the Tigers as a power.

"Everybody has really been talking trash," senior Jay Lindal said. "They are right. We really haven't been anything in the last few years. They just keep saying that we are running on fast courses. Yeah, we are running on fast courses, but we are still putting up the times. You still have to do it. We are still competing and still beating a lot of good people."

In the most recent regional standings, the Tiger men are ranked ninth in the South Central, sixth among conference teams. In the conference's news release for the meet, five teams are considered contenders for the men's title.

Fort Hays is not listed.

In the eyes of the Tigers, Fort Hays can win the title.

"We think we are THE top team," Lindal said. "I think all of us guys, we are pretty pumped about going against the guys in our conference. People in our conference really don't think we are any good just because of what we have done in the past and we are ready to show them who is boss and put them in their place."

A conference championship would be the first title for any Fort Hays team since the school switched from the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference to the MIAA in 2006. No Fort Hays team has finished better than third in any MIAA sport.

"We have been pretty excited about that," Lindal said. "We can make history being the first team at Fort Hays. We have talked about that and we really want that."

McCullough said the men "have maybe four guys" who have an opportunity to win a conference title, in seniors Lindal, twins Aaron and Dan Yoder and sophomore Cole Ginther, a Thomas More Prep-Marian graduate.

"I am just so worked up about everybody not thinking we are any good and I am ready to prove them wrong and I don't want any of them to beat me at all," Lindal said. "I want us to take 1-2-3. That would be amazing. I just want to destroy (the opposition) as bad as I can."

Dan Yoder was fourth at the MIAA championships last year, while Aaron Yoder was named conference runner of the week earlier this season after he won the individual title at the Oklahoma Baptist Invitational. Ginther and Lindal both have top-10 showings at meets.

"From people talking trash towards us, they just help us build momentum because we are ready to tear them up," Lindal said. "I think Cole, Dan and Aaron, they are going to feed off that energy from me and I am going to feed off their energy because they are just as much pumped as I am. I am ready to get after it."

Missouri Southern State University, ranked No. 2 in the region, is considered the favorite after winning eight of the last nine conference titles and four in a row.

Pittsburg State University and Southwest Baptist (Mo.) University check in at three and four in the region. Fort Hays' top competition for individual honors in likely Pittsburg State's MJ Hassaballa.

"Four guys that I think we can have in the top five," Lindal said. "Dan Yoder, Aaron, me and Cole Ginther, any of us can win it. It is just who has it that day."

The women have also been discredited. They stand seventh in the regional poll, fifth among MIAA squads, after finishing no worse than third in any meet this fall.

Senior Jackie Jamison relishes being an underdog -- it worked last year at regionals when Fort Hays qualified for nationals and finished nationally ranked.

"Regionals we came back out of nowhere," Jamison said. "No one expected it and I absolutely love that. That is an amazing feeling when people don't have too much faith in us and prove them wrong."

They could do that again Saturday. The top four women all season have been senior Nikki Knowles, Jamison, junior Ali Mishler and sophomore Amie Algrim. Saturday also will yield the first race all year for senior Ashlee Orr.

Orr, bothered by a foot injury, was all-MIAA honorable mention in 2007. Jamison labels Orr's importance as "more than she realizes" against competition that includes Missouri Southern, back-to-back conference champions.

"That is five runners that can pack up there pretty tight," McCullough said of Knowles, Jamison, Mishler, Algrim and Orr. "I don't know if anyone else in the conference can have a pack that close."

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