Fitchburg State College cross country teams poised for great season

Courtesy of Katrina Caraganis, Sentinel and Enterprise

FITCHBURG -- The Fitchburg State College men's and women's cross country teams are gearing up for what veteran head coach Jim Jellison hopes will be hard-running and promising seasons.

KYLE SCHAEFFER

The Falcons opened the season on Saturday at Keene State, with the men placing third and the women taking fourth. Now Fitchburg will turn its attention to today's home meet, the Jim Sheehan Classic, which will be run at 4 p.m. at Fitchburg's Coggshall Park.

The men's team is the defending champion of the Massachusetts State College Athletic Conference and entered the season ranked second behind the Owls of Westfield State College.

"Last year, we had lot of good guys that trained hard," Jellison said before kicking off the season. "We were picked fifth in the MASCAC standings. We dedicated ourselves and we knew how good we could be. We won at Westfield. It's great when you go away and win the championship."

Even though they've lost some of their top talent to graduation, Jellison is confident his returning runners can keep pace with last year's team.

"We have a great group of returning kids," he said. "Two of our top runners from last year are back. They were both all-conference last season. Matt Spano from Gardner was 10th in the conference and Kyle Schaeffer from Hudson finished 11th last year. Both can fight to be in the top four or five." 

STEPHANIE JARVIS

Jellison, who has been coaching at Fitchburg State for 31 years, has no plans to change his coaching style for either team.

"I have them run quality miles over quantity miles. I'd rather have them run faster during training rather than running junk miles just to get them in. They also do speed workouts and it's not the same thing all the time," he said. "We try and vary what we do so it doesn't get boring and we run on different surfaces."

Jellison said his team is looking to repeat this year, but knows the favorite is Westfield State.

"Most people believe Westfield will be the best team. We talk about it all the time. It's better to have a goal to reach and knock someone else out instead of putting the target on our back," he said. "There will be a target on our back because we are the defending champ, but they don't know what we have. We are the only state school that runs in the all-New England championships."

Jellison said his chances of repeating are good because of the talent the team possesses.

"We have five decent freshmen who can take the places of those who left," he said.

CHRIS KIBLER

The women's cross country team was ranked fifth last year, and entered this year with the same ranking. But Jellison predicted the team will do better than that.

"We lost one woman from last year, but we have a good group of women coming back," said Jellison referring to his top returning runners, including captain Stephanie Jarvis, sophomore Katie Page, who was the top-ranked freshman runner last year, Kristina Gagnon and Katy Scott.

Jellison said the biggest addition to the team is Rachel Boudreau, a graduate student at Fitchburg State.

"She should be our No. 1 runner. She ran for me a couple years ago and is in tremendous shape this year," said the coach, who brings a unique coaching style to the table.

"I would rather my team be just a little under-trained," he said. "That way, you have strength and power to come back. We all run together. We go in the woods together. We all do things together. Whenever the men do a speed workout, so do the women. It makes for great team camaraderie."

"The women and men in cross country become tighter knit because they do the same thing all the time. It's not like a sprinter or a pole vaulter. They know each other and do everything with each other."

Jellison said it all comes down to one meet where the teams can really prove themselves.

"This time of year it doesn't matter where you are," he said. "The thing that counts is Oct. 24. That's the MASCAC cross country championship. That's when it counts."