The RoundHouse | 9/2/2021 4:11:00 PM

 

 
Wichita State's Bryce Merriman stopped regarding practices as a test, as a pressure-filled task to grind through. Early in his junior year, he realized he needed to lighten up.
 
 "Freshman and sophomore year, you go into each workout hoping you were good enough to hang with the top guys," he said. "You want to look good in front of your coach. Junior year, I definitely decided to have more fun with it. More jokes. Talking during the hard times and getting each other through."
 
About the same time a year ago, Merriman began to improve his practice times as a distance runner. He remembers a 1,500 that beat his own expectations by around five seconds. Soon after, he won an intrasquad 6-kilometer cross country race.
 
"I proved to myself that I could do the shorter events fast, and the longer events fast," he said. "The biggest thing is confidence."
 
On Saturday, the Shockers open the cross country season with the JK Gold Classic at 4 Mile Creek Resort near Augusta. Merriman is part of a men's team that coach Kirk Hunter expects to run near the top of the American Athletic Conference.
 
"The men's team is probably the deepest, strongest group of men I've ever had," he said. "The depth we have is something I'm really excited about."
 
Merriman, from Maize South High School, redshirted in 2018-19 and finished 41^st in the conference meet the next season and 31^st in 2020-21. Last spring, he finished eighth in the AAC Outdoor Championships in the 1,500 with a personal-best time of 3 minutes, 46.52 seconds.
 
"He turned himself into a new athlete," Hunter said. "Developing to that level, from a guy that was running more like 3:58, 3:59, is an amazing accomplishment. He also showed during COVID that he could do the long stuff, it's just that nobody has seen it. We know his capabilities."
 
Merriman points to an increase in weekly summer mileage – up to around 80 from 50 – and more tempo aerobic runs as important parts of the training plan. A better diet helps, as does a good spirit of competition among the distance runners. He stayed healthy, an issue that also set him back in high school, he said.
 
"Just buying into the program and believing in Coach Hunter," he said. "I came from a high school where I had four coaches, a different coach every year, and I finally got some consistency. Then, he was patient with me when I didn't have a good first year."
 
Wichita State's men finished fourth in the AAC meet (held in February at 4 Mile Creek Resort) and return Jed Helker, who finished 14^th, in addition to Merriman, Clayton Duchatschek and Adam Moore.
 
Hunter sees the depth coming from improving runners such as Trey Rios, Jackson Caldwell and Shadrack Chumba.
 
"Those guys are really killing it in practice," Hunter said. "To see them at a whole different level like that puts us about seven or eight deep."
 
The Shocker women finished second in the AAC meet in February with Winny Koskei winning her third individual title.
 
Koskei graduated, leaving Yazmine Wright and McKenna Paintin to lead the team. Wright finished fifth and Paintin 13^th in the conference meet. Danielle Rinn finished 16^th and Abeba Sullivan returns after redshirting in 2020-21. She placed 30^th in the 2019 AAC meet.
 
With Koskei and Rebekah Topham among the AAC's best, the Shockers finished second in 2019 and 2020 and won the title in 2018.
 
"It's tough to replace people like that, but right now Yazmine Wright looks every bit as good as those two," Hunter said. "She's at a whole different level. If she can turn her into races into the way she's training, and the motivation she has to be at the national meet, I think it's going to be a really fun year."

Update: The threat of rain overnight forced a change in schedule.
 
The men's 6-kilometer race begins at 1:30 p.m., followed by the women's 5K.
 
Paul Suellentrop covers Wichita State Athletics and the American Athletic Conference for university Strategic Communications. Story suggestion? Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.