New Coach Prepares to Lead Cross Country in Opener at Virginia Tech
After an unusually short offseason due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Liberty’s cross-country team, led by first year Head Coach Isaac Wendland, prepares for the upcoming season.
Wendland stepped into his new role with the team after previously serving as the assistant track and field/cross-country coach since 2019. Prior to coaching, Wendland competed for Liberty in track and field as well as cross-country, leaving behind an impressive legacy. During his time at Liberty, he received seven All-Big South awards for track and won the Big South 800m and 1,500m in 2013.
As he embarks on the next chapter of his journey with Liberty, Wendland focused his efforts on continuing to improve Liberty’s strong cross-country team.
“My emotions going into to it is really just excitement,” Wendland said. “I think it’s just like I’m standing on the shoulders of some really great coaches behind me that have laid a foundation for this team, on the girls’ side and on the guys’ side.”
While any team with a new coach should expect to face challenges, Liberty’s squad faces the additional challenge of competing after an abbreviated offseason. Because COVID-19 postponed the 2020 cross country campaign to the spring of 2021, the team has had less time to recover from last season. Wendland chose to view this as a positive instead of an negative.
“I think it’s actually kind of a blessing because it keeps us in this rhythm of cross country and taking a year off from cross country, sometimes it takes a while to build back up,” Wendland said. “But we’re coming in with a lot of excitement for this season and (with) the short turnaround, I think it’s more exciting than hard at this point.”
Both the men’s and women’s team look to build off the performances of last spring. The men’s team looks to improve after falling just short in the ASUN Championship with a second-place finish behind North Florida. The women’s team won the ASUN as well as finishing in 26th place at the NCAA DI Championships.
The men’s team seems confident that they will achieve better results than last season.
“We’re ready to race in big meets, and I feel like the course has been disappointing the last few years in the conference meet finishing runner-up,” redshirt senior Ryan Drew said. “I feel very confident and believe that our guys and myself have the strength to do it, and hopefully we can make it happen this year.”
As for the women’s team, they look to reach the level of success that they saw in the spring.
“There might be pressure when you qualify for nationals, but nothing has changed for them,” Wendland said about the women’s team. “They’re really talented group. They’re ready to go and we don’t need to run with pressure because we know that we have a greater belief than just ourselves and so we can really trust God in this process and this season. That’s where these girls’ hearts are, and if we can stay there, the results will take care of itself.”
Remembering the high point of last year will no doubt help the team reach those heights again.
“We really want to keep ourselves motivated and remember where we were at last year,” junior Adelyn Ackley said. “It would be great to be able to make it there again, but we’ll see what the future holds.”
The cross-country team will kick off this season Sept. 1 in the Virginia Tech Invitational. Much like how a runner in a long-distance race does not begin with a sprint, Wendland desires for the team to ease into the competitive season instead of overextending the athletes.
“We want to progress gradually, and so this isn’t going to be an all-out effort at Virginia Tech,” Wendland said. “It’s going to be getting the ball rolling for our team and then the next meet Sept. 10 will be a little harder effort, but we’ll really kick our season off when we go to Roy Griak out in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and that’s when we’ll really start testing this team and seeing who we are.”
Christian Shields is the Assistant Sports Editor. Find him on Facebook.