Big 12 Championship - Post Meet Quotes

Oct. 29, 2011

Recap |

Big 12 Championships
Post Meet Quotes
October 29, 2011

Head Coach Stanley Redwine
His overall thoughts on the teams’ performances in Saturday’s race:
“Austin Bussing on the men’s side ran really well and I thought Rebeka Stowe being seventh was really good. We didn’t place as well as we wanted to on both sides. The expectations were about three or four places higher. We have to figure out exactly what happened there so we can do better at the regional meet to better our chances of going to the NCAA meet. We just have too much space between our No. 1 runners and our No. 5 runners. As time goes we talked about people stepping up. We had some people that are normally our No. 7 runners step up to within our top five. We just have to have more consistency at the top.”

On if inexperience may have hurt the teams in Saturday’s race:
“I can’t say that it hurt us. I just don’t think we ran to our potential. For whatever reason, we just didn’t run well. Earlier in the season we had great races so I think it was a situation today were they went out a little bit too anxious and a little too hard and that may have hurt them at the end a little bit. I can’t say it was inexperience but I just think they were overanxious.”

On what he thought of Rebeka Stowe’s performance:
“It was an awesome race for her. She went in with the mindset that she wanted to be there and she did. She ran a great race. She executed well. She got in the front at the very beginning and stayed there. That was what was expected of her and that’s what she did. She had an excellent performance.”

On what the teams will need to work on as they move on to regionals in two weeks:
“We need to figure out what happened to cause our athletes to have such a wide spread. From there we’ll just correct that and go. If it was the fact that some of them went out too hard today, then we’ll have to correct that. You can tell them that stuff but actually executing in the race is something else. We may have hyped them up a little too much at the start of the race so maybe that’s why they didn’t do as well.”

Assistant Coach Michael Whittlesey
On the men’s team’s performance:
“Austin (Bussing) did a real nice job. I thought we got a little too anxious early in the race and went out a little faster then what we had wanted to do. I think that stung us about two miles into the race. Austin I thought ran really well. If we’re running within 20 seconds of him, we’re good. That’s what we talked about; we have to be within 20 seconds but we didn’t do that today.”

On Rebeka Stowe’s performance:
“She ran a really nice race. We talked about how she needed to really engage with that front group and keying off the Iowa State girls and she did a real nice job. They made a move about two and a half miles into it and that spread it out a little bit. She took a little hit there but regrouped and really brought it back the race was never out of reach for her so she should take a lot of confidence from this race moving forward to regionals and then moving on to nationals.”

On what the team needs to improve upon moving forward to regionals:
“The men just need to regroup. If we go out and run our rhythm and run our pace and we’ll be fine at regionals. I really felt we were ready to go. There’s no question about that. Had we done what we should have done early on in the race, we’d be talking about a different situation right now. That’s part of competition though. We didn’t have a great meet at Minnesota but we turned around and ran really well at Wisconsin. So we need to do the exact same thing and learn from our mistakes. The regional meet should go out a little more controlled then the conference meet. We thought Oklahoma might put a surge on it, we had talked about letting them go but we got wrapped up into it. The regional meet should be a little more controlled in that situation. If we go out and run as a pack and feel confident through the first few miles then we should be fine.”

Senior Rebeka Stowe
On earning All-Big 12 honors first the second-consecutive year:
“It’s exciting. This course is really nice and really flat so I PR’s by a lot and that’s fun. I have pretty high expectations for myself so sometimes it doesn’t go as well as I would’ve liked. At the same time it’s an awesome experience and it’s something I should be really proud of and excited I could come out and help the team.”

On the women’s team’s performance:
“We’re still trying to figure out how to put it all together on the same day and that’s pretty hard when you have nine different people. You have to get every single one of those people to perform at their best. We have one more shot at it. We’ve had some good things. Kara (Windisch) did really well today. I was really proud of her just getting out and doing what she needed to do. We just need to get everyone together and on the same page at regionals. Hopefully we’ll get that last shot at nationals.”

On what her team needs to work on as they prepare for regionals:
“At this point it’s just about confidence and execution because we’re good enough. We’ve been having so many good workouts. I know for me it’s even just executing a little more. I was telling one of the girls I fell asleep for maybe a minute out there and I was in fifth and I ended up in seventh. It’s a twenty minute race but even a minute, if you’re not on top of your game it could really cost you. It’s about figuring out how we’re going to stay on task and focused the entire race.”

On who has helped her get to the level of All-Big 12 athlete:
“Definitely Coach (Whittlesey) because of training and having to buy into (his system). My mom has constantly put that belief in me that this is an ability that I’ve been given and it’s something I need to take advantage of. I want to use it as well as I possibly can. I think that’s why I get down on myself sometimes because I recognize at the end that I could’ve pushed that much harder of given that much more effort to bring glory to the abilities I’ve been given.”

Senior Austin Bussing
On the men’s team’s race:

“I don’t think we really executed the race plan the way we had been talking about and I think that ended up really hurting us. I feel like we were maybe a little over-excited. Went out a little quicker then we should have. We really wanted to go out after the Texas A&M guys but instead we put them in a position to draft off us for a while and sort of kick us down. I have to take responsibility for that because being a senior and a captain I should have been the one to tell the guys to ease off a little bit that first mile.”

On if he was happy with his individual performance:
“Most of the things I thought I could have done better were from a team standpoint and communication between the guys and making sure we executed the race plan. As far as dealing with what happened as it happened I’m relatively happy with how I did.”

On if inexperience may have played a role in his team struggling in Saturday’s race:
“I think that may have been it. But that’s where I should’ve stepped in and been a leader in that way because I have been around for four years. That might have had something to do with it but they’ve all got a bright future and as long as we’ve learned something from this meet then not all is lost.”

On how the condition of the course:
“It’s easier then we’re used to because it’s pretty much flat. There are some very small undulations. The footing in some places was a little off, but it was a fast course for sure.”

On the keys of improvement for the regional meet in two weeks:
“We definitely need to pack up again. At Wisconsin our spread from one to five was 21 seconds and today I think it was 40. We spread way out. We need to pack up. We need to go out smarter than we did in today’s race. Really just get back to that team strategy. We’re all in great shape to have a great shape to have a great race at regionals. It’s just whether or not we execute correctly.”