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You are here: Home / Sports / Jelen, cross country optimistic for 2020 season
(Photo by Cynthia Rangel)

Jelen, cross country optimistic for 2020 season

August 22, 2020 by Avery Jackson

The fate of ACU’s cross country team was left in limbo Aug. 13 after the Southland Conference made the decision to postpone fall sports.

“The team is thankful for our administration allowing us to host meets and potentially even travel to a meet,” Jarvis Jelen, head cross country coach, said.

When the Southland Conference postponed fall sports, each college was given the opportunity to hold its own competitions in the fall at the university’s discretion. ACU made an announcement following the postponement that it plans to look into opportunities to play against other universities.

The original cross country schedule included meets at Texas Tech and Texas A&M prior to the Southland championships. The team was originally looking forward to this schedule considering the travel time and quality of meets.

“The NCAA championships were already canceled along with most of the conference meets already,” Jelen said. “It’s disappointing since we were going to compete against good teams and we were ready to go. At the same time, it was for the best considering all the uncertainty around finishing the season.”

Having more cross country meets held at ACU has allowed the team to invite better teams to compete and set up bigger competitions than in the past seasons.

“We are still training as hard as normal, and we will continue acting like we still have races upcoming,” junior runner Colton Gates said. “We will continue working hard training and preparing some fast times and work together as a team.”

Cross country is coming off a strong last year placing third in the men’s conference. The men didn’t lose a single runner and have multiple freshmen joining the team to help build depth and strengthen the team. The women are also working on increasing their depth to strengthen the roster.

“We are just really excited for the future to have both men’s and women’s teams competing as one of the top cross country teams in the Southland conference each year,” Jelen said.

Filed Under: Sports

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About Avery Jackson

You are here: Home / Sports / Jelen, cross country optimistic for 2020 season

Other Sports:

  • Wildcats post season-low 46 points in loss to Lady Lions

  • Softball struggles on the road against Texas State, UNT

  • Women’s tennis leave Lubbock empty-handed after snow week

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acuoptimistThe Optimist@acuoptimist·
4h

"ResLife had to handle dorms without power, water and burst pipes. We saw them communicate and lead like no other during these challenging times." Read more from Sports Videographer Tavian Miles below:
https://acuoptimist.com/2021/02/unsung-heroes-of-the-winter-storm/

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Despite challenges created by COVID-19, freshman and sophomore retention numbers are holding with a minor decrease from fall to spring. Read more below:
https://acuoptimist.com/2021/02/freshman-and-sophomore-retention-numbers-comparable-to-2020/

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4 hours ago

The Optimist
"ResLife had to handle dorms without power, water and burst pipes. We saw them communicate and lead like no other during these challenging times." Read more from Sports Videographer Tavian Miles below: ...

Unsung heroes of the winter storm - Optimist

acuoptimist.com

A lot of us did not expect to have a pre-spring break in the middle of February, but ultimately that’s what happened as a whole university. “The winter storm displaced many of us, and forced us out of our daily routine.” Now, it wasn’t an actual spring break because of what happened across t...
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1 day ago

The Optimist
Despite challenges created by COVID-19, freshman and sophomore retention numbers are holding with a minor decrease from fall to spring. Read more below: ...

Freshman and sophomore retention numbers comparable to 2020 - Optimist

acuoptimist.com

Freshman and sophomore retention numbers are holding with a minor decrease from fall to spring according to an email from Dr. Schubert. Despite challenges presented by COVID-19, retention rates are holding slightly above 90%. “Freshman retention is holding at 90.5% from fall to spring (compared to...
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