TULSA, Okla. – The Wichita State men's and women's cross country teams spike up for the American Athletic Conference Championships Friday in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The gun will be up for the women's 6K race at 9:15 a.m., followed by the men's 8K at 10:00 a.m. at Mohawk Park.
 
Head coach Kirk Hunter's Shocker men are coming off the program's best regular-season performance in Hunter's 12 years at the helm, taking second place as a team at the Bradley Pink Classic with school record-breaking performances from Clayton Duchatschek and Ben Flowers. The men moved back up to sixth in the USTFCCCA Midwest Region rankings ahead of the conference meet.
 
The Wichita State men return two of four all-conference runners from last year's AAC second-place team in Bryce Merriman (12^th) and Duchatschek (14^th), and Flowers returns to the AAC Cross Country Championships for the first time since earning all-conference honors in 2019 (7^th) after battling his way back from a hip injury that sidelined him for two years.
 
"Having Ben back is incredible," Hunter said. "To have a guy that comes back and runs under our school record, that's an incredible person to have back on your team. Huge impact."
 
The Shockers were forced to fill the void of all-conference graduate Adam Moore and transfers Shadrack Chumba and Jed Helker but seem to have found their stride with Cowley College transfer Adrian Diaz-Lopez and freshman Jacob Meyers.
 
Diaz-Lopez is the reigning NJCAA indoor 3,000-meter champion and has stepped right into the Shockers' top five in his first two meets.
 
"Having Adrian [Diaz-Lopez] is…important. Not only did we replace the two [all-conference runners from last year], we have enhanced our team in terms of performances," Hunter said. "That has caused others on the team to step up even more and caused us to be a better overall team."
 
The Shockers' team performance two weeks ago included six 8K times within 30 seconds of the previous school record, but Hunter wants to see all his men continue to improve.
 
"We're going to have to duplicate what we did at Bradley," Hunter said. "In fairness, six guys did the majority of the work, and we've got nine guys running, so the reality is we really should step up from that. We're going to need everybody to come in there and be ready to compete at a very high level."
 
Wichita State's biggest competition comes from the No. 7 team in the nation, host Tulsa.
 
"Competing against Tulsa is always a challenge," Hunter said. "They're an extremely well-coached team and an extremely talented group of athletes. The benefit for us is racing against a team that's at a super high level. It gives us the perspective of knowing what we'll have to encounter when we go to the regional meet and hopefully on to the NCAA meet."
 
The Golden Hurricane return three all-conference athletes from last year's championship team, including the fastest AAC returner Micheal Power (4^th) and the 2021 AAC Freshman of the Year Chris McLeod (7th).
 
"If we want to be successful, truly at the level we want to be, we have to be able to compete with people like Tulsa, so that's a challenge that we need to accept," Hunter said.
 
If Tulsa executes its race, Cincinnati, Tulane, Memphis and Temple will all be battling the Shockers for the second-place spot.
 
The Shocker women enter the AAC Championship with much less experience than the men. After losing reigning AAC Champion Yazmine Wright and all-conference performer Danielle Rinn to the transfer portal, Hunter has looked to a young team to step up. Five of the nine Shockers that will toe the line in Tulsa are making their AAC championship debut.
 
"We are going against people that have much more experience than my group, but that also gives us lots of opportunity," Hunter said. "Because we are inexperienced and because we have been learning all year, that gives us the opportunity to come in there and surprise people."
 
Abeba Sullivan has led the Shockers all season long and returns to the AAC starting line for the first time since 2019 after having her son, Zion, in early 2021, missing the spring championships that season, and having her fall 2021 season cut short due to injury. The women aim for a top-three finish, and Sullivan seeks to earn her first all-conference honors.
 
"I know that they have the opportunity, if they stick their nose in there, they're not scared and they're not intimidated, to have a very successful meet and to jump up further than they're supposed to be," Hunter said. "Hopefully, they'll embrace that, and they'll learn to run as a team like the guys are doing and use that to springboard themselves up to a much better level than we're currently sitting."
 
The women's team placed sixth a year ago and will need a full-team performance to move up. SMU and Tulsa are the teams to beat, but the majority of the AAC teams are somewhat evenly matched, and the results could vary depending on each athlete's execution on race day.
 
"It comes down to if they're intimidated or if they want to take a shot, and if they take a shot and it works, it could be a fun day," Hunter said.
 
Both races will be streamed on ESPN+ and fans can follow along on Twitter @GoShockersTFXC.