Arizona will host its first and only meet of the season against in-state rivals ASU and Mesa Community College on Friday.
UA is coming off a strong start from their George Kyte Invitational performance. At the Kyte invitational, the women were able to take home first place and the. men snagged second place.
Head coach James Li did not run all of his top performers at the Kyte Invitational; instead, he took a chance to evaluate the new runners in his program. This, however, will not be the case on Friday.
“”We will run everyone; anyone who can ran will run,”” Li said. “”In that regard, it will be different, but in terms of record this is almost like a NFL preseason game.””
According to Li, the team trained well from the last meet and every runner is healthy and ready to go for today’s meet. The men’s team has had to replace a lot of talent after Mohamud Ige graduated, but the coaching staff feels like newcomer Stephen Sambu is ready to step into that role.
“”I feel great,”” Sambu said. “”My training has been great — it’s not like the type of things I did while I was at Rend Lake.””
Sambu was arguably the best junior college runner in the country while he ran for Rend Lake Community College.
“”He is looking good, he is training great,”” Li said. “”I guess we just have to wait and see how he runs at the meet.””
Li held Sambu out of the first meet at George Kyte because, to him, it was unnecessary for Sambu to run at that meet.
“”This meet this Friday will kind of be a low key meet for us,”” said assistant coach Erin Dawson. “”Then next week we will travel out to Minneapolis, Minn., for the Griek Meet that’s going to be when we start to go hard in terms of training.””
On the women’s side, incoming runner Elvin Kibet is already making waves in her first few weeks on the team. Kibet took first place at the George Kyte invitational, and the coaching staff has high hopes for the Kenya-born runner.
“”She is fresh out of Kenya, and she is learning a lot of new things right now,”” Dawson said. “”The Flagstaff meet was her first cross-country meet ever. She has good leadership out of the older girls, and they are kind of showing her the way.””
Coach Li added that he expected her to be one of the top two or three runners on the women’s side by the end of the season.
