The HÂţ» AC Rams are trying to win with a different formula this year.
A collective team effort is being employed in hopes of bringing home an Atlantic Collegiate Athletic Association (ACAA) women’s cross country running team title, which narrowly eluded the Rams in 2015 and is something they have never tasted in eight seasons under coach Joy Galloway-Jones.
“I would like to take it and finally bring home that women’s banner,” Galloway-Jones said. “That’s my dream for these girls.”
It nearly happened a year ago. Riding the coattails of conference runner of the year Hannah Arseneault – who won all five races she entered, including the individual conference crown – HÂţ» was edged for the team title by the Mount Allison Mounties.
This year Arseneault has moved on and the Rams are missing that dominant runner they could once bet the farm on. That’s just fine with Galloway-Jones when she assesses this year’s crop of athletes.
The coach feels she has a much more balanced lineup – Danielle Albers, Lily Forsythe, Emily Sutherland and Cassidy Bradley leading Shannon O’Connor and Lindsay Cameron – more suited for scoring points in team competition.
“It’s really nice to have that runner to come first,” Galloway-Jones said. “But if they don’t have the team to back them up then it’s all for not. This year we don’t have that runner who comes first or second, but they all come in in a clump and that’s what you want. They all work together and pull each other along and that’s really cool.”
The strategy seems to be working. The Rams women won Saturday’s race at Universite Sainte Anne by nipping the Mounties after finishing second to Mount Allison in the season-opener Sept. 19 in Brookvale, P.E.I.
Galloway-Jones said she can see the effects the results are having on her athletes.
“They are starting to see they can do it,” she said. “And I really think because of that they are really going to buckle down and work even harder in training.”
That’s exactly what it will take to wrestle the title from the defending champion Mounties. Galloway-Jones wants her athletes peaking at the conference championship race Oct. 22 at Brookvale.
“It really all comes down to that last race,” she said. “You can do what you want all season but you have to get it done in that last race and I think with the women we have, they are capable of doing that. I believe in them.”
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