Five returning letter winners should give Generals strong cross-country team

Doug Bennett knew he had a team of promise last year. Today, that team of promise is a year older and wiser, and he’s looking for that continued improvement to push the Generals toward the top of the Ohio Cardinal Conference.The veteran coach has five returning lettermen to build the team around. Those five, Bennett hopes, will allow the Generals to compete with the best of the OCC. Three are seniors, and two advanced to regionals as Brock Berlin and Cody Neidig led the Generals a year ago as they picked up their third letter. Classmate Ian Parry, along with junior Zach Humrichouser and sophomore Paul Wood, join them.“Five returning lettermen – that’s kinda cool,” said Bennett, whose team graduated two of its top seven runners from a year ago in Cody Polen and Danny Jones. Bennett is searching for two more runners to round out the top seven and supply the push to the top group of runners out of a team of 27 runners, “which is larger than it’s been for a couple years.“Some kids to look out for are Drew Wigham – he’s one who put in the miles this summer,” noted Bennett. “Zach Carmel has tried real hard and also put in a lot of miles, and Kevin White is an up-and-coming freshman.”The biggest change for the Generals is a return to the Generals’ old district/regional courses.“We are most notably a true Northeast District team again,” said Bennett. “We’ve moved back from the Northwest to Malone and that happened two days after the season started, so we’ve had a change in our schedule. We will not be attending the Cloverleaf Invite and the Galion Invite so we can run on our district and regional courses. So, we’re going back to Malone and Boardman, where we run districts and regionals (respectively).“We’ve worked real hard this summer,” he added. “That was noticeable in the one team thing we did when we went to Canal Fulton, where you canoe out six miles and you get out and then run 4.1 miles. It’s a race and you’re divided into teams, and I saw several promising runs. That tells me we’re strong. We have a big freshman class – 10 kids – which is nice, and the team all gets along well. We’re coming together nicely as a team and we’ll see what we do.”One goal is return to the top of the Ohio Cardinal Conference.“We were second in the OCC by one point to Ashland last year,” said Bennett. “They are someone to look out for in the league, along with Lexington. We’re looking to put together a team that can win the league and qualify to regionals. Obviously, no matter what we do, the goal is to improve all year long. If we improve, then those things are very real possibilities.”Wooster opened the season August 23 at Mapleton and will compete in the Revere Invitational Saturday, August 27.