BENTONVILLE — The 7A-West Conference cross country meet may be held at the same location as the Chile Pepper Invitational, but the runners in Tuesday’s race will be seeing a different course.
It will also be a much different race for Bentonville’s cross country team, coach Randy Ramaker said.
“It will be nice to run in a meet where you can see where your competition is,” Ramaker said. “It’s going to be interesting.
“But most of our runners have been on the course that they will run Tuesday, so nothing out there will be new. The rain this weekend should make the course perfect for the meet.”
The Tigers haven’t run another meet since the Chile Pepper Invitational, when they ran finished third in the team standings. Will Aenchbacher, running his first meet of the season, and Travis Diepenbrock led Bentonville with personal-best times and finished fourth and 17th, respectively.
“The boys have a lot of confidence right now,” Ramaker said. “If we run as well as we did in the Chile Pepper, we can win the conference.”
On the girls side, Bentonville will be at full strength for Tuesday’s race. The Lady Tigers were without Taylor Estrada and Lauren Cowgur when they ran in the Chile Pepper and finished 10th in the team standings.
Still, Ramaker believes Bentonville will be chasing Rogers High for the conference title.
“It’s going to be an uphill battle for the girls,” he said. “All of our girls will be running, and this is an improving girls team. It should be a good precursor for the (Class 7A) state meet.”