Cross country comes to Beatrice

Cross+country+comes+to+Beatrice

Lindsay Parker, Lincoln campus reporter

SCC Beatrice campus will be adding men’s and women’s cross country in the fall, and future plans are to add soccer to the sports schedule.

Dan Johnson, the director of athletics at Beatrice, said that the campus is expanding the athletic program and starting cross country, and Vicki Wooton will be coaching both the men’s and women’s teams.

Wooton said she is stepping away as head coach of the Storm women’s basketball team so that she can focus on putting together a cross country team in time for the fall quarter season, which will have meets in September, October and November.

“I’m still recruiting, so I’m hoping that the word gets out to interested students,” said Wooton, “and there are scholarships available.”

Wooton is no stranger to cross country.  She was head coach of the women’s cross country team at Northwest Missouri State for seven years and head coach of the women’s and men’s cross country teams at Iowa Wesleyan for six years.

The Beatrice cross country teams has plans to participate in the NJCAA Division I XC Championships on November 12, 2016, in El Dorado, Kan., which includes a men’s 8k and women’s 5k race, and the NJCAA Men’s and Women’s Half Marathon Championships on November 19, 2016, in Golf Shores, Ala..

“It should be fun,” said Wooton.

Plans for men’s and women’s soccer in Beatrice are still in the works, said Johnson.

“We are thinking about soccer, but we won’t officially start it until we expand resident halls on campus,” he said.

Bob Morgan, the Beatrice campus director, said that soccer is on their radar, but there is not enough room to accommodate the students needed to fill teams.

“We have 307 dorm beds available, and we would need 25 students per sport, so we need to expand housing,” said Morgan.

Morgan said they’re currently studying what needs to be done to increase occupancy and working on a design for a new residence hall so that men’s and women’s soccer teams are possible.