We are just a few days away from the New Jersey Atlantic Conference (NJAC) Championships and the Rowan men’s cross country team is looking to show off their depth.

One of the teams’ top runners, sophomore Kevin Lauer, is up in the air to compete in the race. He went down during the Inter Regional Border Battle, and his condition sounded quite frightening

“I was allergic to something in the field,” Lauer said. “Very dusty there, there was a ton of dust. On top of that, when I went down, I got back up and there were bumps all over my legs. My lungs were closed up and I could not breathe.”

Kevin hopes to be running by Saturday, although he did have another setback this week.

“I actually sprained my ankle yesterday,” Lauer said. “I hope to run, we’re gonna see what I can do tomorrow. But right now we are just hoping to get there.”

According to Head Coach, Dustin Dimit, Kevin’s absence can very well impact the teams’ performance, but he is not worried should Kevin not run this Saturday.

“It is a huge difference. Compared to other sports where your second best point guard might come in,” Dimit said. “Our eight best runner would be replacing our first because the other guys are already in there. We have not run our top seven in a race yet this year, so they are used to that.”

The same thing was said by senior and Captain, Jason Muermann, regarding the team running without their top guys at points in the season.

“I am really excited for when we get all of the pieces together,” Muermann said. “The last two races we have had, we were missing out on Dylan [Tyrrell], and then at the Border Battle we were missing out on Kevin. We still placed pretty high in both of those meets, so when we get all of the pieces together we can really run well at these big races.”

NJACs are set for Nov. 2 at Stockton University in Galloway, NJ. The Profs are the favorites to win and let’s see if the depth of the team can bring them home a conference championship.

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