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Lady Buffs poised for seventh straight AAC championship

By Jeff Birchfield
Press Sports Writer
jbirchfield@johnsoncitypress.com

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It’s the time of year Chris Layne has to do a balancing act.

Serving as head coach for the Milligan College cross country program, his teams must be prepared for Saturday’s Appalachian Athletic Conference championships at Black Mountain, N.C. Yet, he can’t ignore his other position as head coach of the indoor track and field team as the season opener is just a month away with the MTSU Invitational in Murfreesboro.

Looking ahead to Saturday’s cross country meet, the Milligan women are favored to win a seventh straight AAC title. They are led by the potent 1-2 combination of sophomore Gillian Giffen and junior Lili Zaldana. However, Layne has more ambitious goals than just winning the conference.

“Gillian has been so solid all season and Lili has really come along,” Layne said. “I think both of those girls can be top 30 in nationals. We’ve set a goal of finishing one through five and getting a perfect score at the conference meet. I want to challenge the girls to challenge themselves. When we get to nationals, it’s going to be a battle, so we have to prepare ourselves mentally.”

It’s not unrealistic to believe the Lady Buffs can achieve perfection. They actually had the top six finishers when the meet was held at Elizabethton’s Sycamore Shoals State Park two years ago. The scary news for AAC opponents is Shanna Raines, a local product from Happy Valley, is Milligan’s lone senior.

Freshman Lauren Hubbard, a former Dobyns-Bennett standout, talked about her first year on a team which has the No. 1 seed for the AAC meet and is ranked No. 19 nationally. Their record stands at 50-12 with the only losses coming to NCAA Division 1 programs.

“It’s great to come in to such a good team,” she said. “I’ve seen everyone work so hard this year. To see the progress we’ve made and to have people believe in us, it’s unbelievable.”

On the men’s side, the defending champion Buffs have been chasing Bryan all season. While last year’s second-place individual Austin Ellis talked about his team closing the gap over the past couple of races, his head coach doesn’t know if Milligan can completely close it by Saturday.

“They’re a very good team,” Layne said about Bryan. “We’ve got to really focus on doing the best job we can do. But I’m a realist. They certainly have one of the best teams in the country. They beat the No. 3 team in the country last week in Louisville.”

Layne explained there are three scenarios for the Buffs — win the meet, run well enough to get an at-large bid to the NAIA nationals or to get 3-4 guys earn individual shots to nationals.

It’s been a remarkable and sometimes difficult run to this point for the Milligan men. The Buffs have had to deal with injuries and had to forfeit the season-opening meet after it was determined that senior Wegene Degafa, a 2007 transfer from Roberts Wesleyan, had exhausted his eligibility.

“It’s the first time in 10 years we’ve had so many problems,” Layne said. “We’ll just deal with it and go on. I’m not going to back out of my early-season prediction about this being a top-10 team in the country. If things had worked out differently, we could have been.”

Moving forward to the indoor track season, Ellis’ goal is to achieve All-American status. He placed eighth at last year’s national meet and ran a best time of 14:59 in the 5,000 meters at the Niswonger Invitational.

On the women’s side, thrower Chelsea Leavell first wants to make it back to nationals after tearing the ACL in her right knee and missing all of the 2009 outdoor season. About five months out of surgery, she is catching up with the other throwers in the program.

Her throwing technique, particularly in the shot put, puts additional pressure on the knee. She glides instead of spins before she heaves the nearly nine-pound metal ball.

Leavell, who threw over 41 feet last season, is currently throwing 35-36 feet without putting a lot of leg power into the heaves. She feels confident the performance will improve dramatically once her body adjusts to the movements.

“I feel I’m on the right track,” she said. “Once I keep doing the repetitions with the throwing, I feel my knee will adjust. I’ve done the rehabbing since May and my knee has really come along since the surgery.”

While Hubbard’s major focus remains on Saturday’s cross country meet, she does look forward to track season, which plays more to her strengths as a middle distance runner. She does like how cross country has gotten her familiar with college competition.

“Cross country helps with indoor track since it’s not like being my first college meet,” Hubbard said. “I have the whole cross country season behind me. That definitely makes the transition easier.”