Season ends with

    The death of a student can bring a school and a family together. Likewise, the death of an athlete can bring a team together. John Bruner’s death did both.
    In a season filled with expectations of better finishes and broken records, two teams came together because of the loss of a teammate and a friend. Al Weston, the sports information director, said that after a loss like this a team could have taken two different directions.
    “(The team) can either get down on (itself), not perform and use that as an excuse,” Weston said, “or they can take it as a rallying point. I think they took the latter of the two.”
    The GCSU men’s and women’s cross country teams came together in the loss of Bruner and competed this season as more than just fellow runners as they have in past seasons.
    “In the past we’ve been distant and almost cliquish,” Alex Pate, a junior nursing major, said. “We were just teammates. We weren’t very close friends.”
    Spending time in Dalton, Ga. with Bruner’s family at the funeral, however, was very meaningful to Pate and the team.
    “Experiencing that with other guys … it was huge,” Pate said. “It really brought us closer together. I hate that that’s what it took.”
    After the camaraderie shown in response to Bruner’s death, Pate’s performance last weekend was another defining moment in the season.
    “Passing all those Clayton State guys and never looking back” was a good feeling Pate said.
    Pate and others passed those runners as they finished eleventh at the NCAA South Regional tournament. The men’s team had one of its best seasons in history in beating rival Clayton State University for the first time all season and coming in second among Peach Belt Conference schools behind Columbus State University.
    “As we saw at Regionals this past weekend we were only 17 points behind Columbus State,” Pate said. “I believe we could have taken the whole conference.”
    Seniors Rich Dobson and Michael Hague, two of the Bobcat’s top-five runners this season, ran their last race for GCSU at Regionals. The loss of those runners will be a blow to the team. Dobson was a walk-on athlete for the Bobcats whose hard work elevated him to All-PBC Honors the past two years and the role of GCSU’s top men’s runner.
    “It’s going to be really hard to lose Rich Dobson’s leadership,” Pate said. “He set the standard high.”
    The Bobcats’ depth will not leave them at the back of the pack though in conference competition for next season.
    “I believe with the depth we have we’re going to be even better next year,” Pate said.
    For the women’s side, the Lady Bobcats finished fifteenth at the Regional Tournament. The women’s team also finished third among conference teams: the best conference finish in school history.
    The prominent story line of the season was Bonnie Ueltzen, a sophomore physical education major, breaking the 6K record time twice, most recently by 21 seconds at Regionals. Ueltzen now holds the first and second-best times in school history for the 6K.
    “It was a surprise to me,” Ueltzen said. “I didn’t know I was going to be able to run like that (this weekend).”
    Ueltzen’s performance was no surprise much like the Lady Bobcats success this past season, which showed in their efforts and times, but not always in their rankings due to increased competition in the conference.
    “Our team did a lot better compared to last year,” Ueltzen said. “Our ranking may look the same but we’ve gotten a lot better.”
    Senior leadership was integral in their improvement and the departure of seniors Kellie Hughes, Patricia Dedrick, Jen Keeton, Becky Kellum and Julie Mitchell will be felt by Ueltzen and other team members.
    “This is the best senior group ever,” Ueltzen said. “It’s going to be tough to see them go, but they’ve done a great job being leaders on the team.”
    The cross-country teams finished their season last weekend and will begin training next semester on their club track team for the fall 2008 semester.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Nov 9 2007. Filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry