The cross country season will start Friday evening for both men’s and women’s cross country with the 13th Naimadu Classic. The women’s 4K race will begin at 6:45 p.m. and the men’s 6K will start at 7:30 p.m. at the ACU XC course on EN 10th Street.
Named after former Wildcat runner Nicodemus Naimadu, the race has been held 14 times, but was called the Wildcat Classic in 2015 and 2016. Naimadu graduated in 2007, and the first event was held in 2009.
“He is one of two runners to win four national titles in cross country,” said Head Coach Nathan Meeuwenberg. “And the other one is Steve Prefontaine, who is probably the most famous runner in history.”
Andruw Villa, sophomore from Abilene, was ACU’s lone All-Western Athletic Conference selection last season and broke the program 8K record previously set by Naimadu himself. Villa beat Naimadu’s 23:46.0 record with a time of 23:11.1.
Finishing second last year in the Naimadu Classic, Villa said racing alongside teammates was fun, especially as a freshman.
“It was cool to get second, and I was actually with Kevin, our upperclassman,” Villa said. “He redshirted last year, but he’s the one that got first. So, it was kind of cool finishing with the upperclassman at our home meet.”
Audrey Chitwood, sophomore from Boise, Idaho, finished first in the Naimadu Classic last year and said she is looking forward to this season, especially with a year of experience under her belt.
“I think also just like coming in as a freshman last year, there’s kind of like a sense of imposter syndrome,” she said. “‘Do I deserve to be here?’ All these older runners seem so much more experienced, and they just know what they’re doing. But you just get through it. And the girls, it’s such a good community that just supports you, too.”
Meeuwenberg said getting to run on home turf to start the season is important and valuable for this team because it gives them a chance to enter the season with less pressure than traveling to a meet.
“For us, nothing really actually matters until the conference tournament,” Meeuwenberg said. “So, it’s super cool that we get to host it, and it’s super fun. Our athletes are not going to race as fast as they possibly can at this first one because we hope that they race the fastest at the end of the season.”
Both the men’s and women’s rosters are relatively young, with only four upperclassmen on the women’s team out of 13 and three on the men’s out of 11. However, both squads kept a strong core from last season, which will be influential moving forward this season.
