ROGERS — Rogers Heritage cross country coach Jeff Shaw has seen his girls team show steady improvement throughout this season, but the boys team is still a bit of a mystery.
Despite a War Eagles team laden with seniors, Heritage has struggled with consistency, Shaw said.
“That’s what we’re having trouble with,” Shaw said. “One race they’ll run great. The next race they’re 45 seconds back.”
Shaw said he tried a few different things in workouts over the last week with the 7A-West Conference meet slated today in Fayetteville and the Class 7A state meet less than two weeks later.
The War Eagles struggled at the Chile Pepper Festival, finishing 21st and far behind conference foes Bentonville (third) and Rogers High (sixth) in the 54-team event.
“We’re trying to figure it out,” Shaw said. “It’s a mental thing for those guys. Based on their workouts, these guys should be running well under 17 (minutes) and they’re just not doing that. They’ve got the physical condition to do it.”
Things have been pretty steady for the Lady War Eagles, Shaw said.
“We’ve got three under 20 minutes now which is an improvement,” Shaw said. “We’re still looking for that fifth (runner) to step up and be closer to our fourth.”
Sophomore Hope Burrell has been strong all season and finished 16th in a talented field at the Chile Pepper on Saturday. Burrell and senior Dani David helped lead the Lady War Eagles to a seventh-place finish and second among Arkansas teams.
“Hope’s had a great season and Dani’s been solid,” Shaw said. “Dierdre Sheets broke 20 recently as a freshman. She has no idea how good she can be yet and we don’t either.”
Shaw did single out Shawn Hamidullah as one of the guys who has showed great improvement.
“He’s moved up to our fourth spot and his time almost every meet has been faster,” Shaw said.
Shaw said his team has the ability to run with the best the 7A-West and also the best in the state.
“This is a tough league,” Shaw said. “We beat Rogers early in the year and ran close to them a couple times. Then we’ve been way off at times. At this point in the year you should have some consistency. We’ll just go run and see what happens.”