TIFTON, Ga. — Run for Love returns to Tifton and Saturday at 7:15 p.m. and Abraham Agricultural College’s Red Hill Athletic Center and with it will be the debut of the Tift County Blue Devil cross country squads.

This will be the first meet on the calendar for Tift’s teams, who will have a full slate of morning races in the weeks following.

The girls’ squad is headed by Kristin McElroy, while Mike Beeman is leading the boys’ and each is proud to have Run for Love leading off their schedule.

“We’re very thankful for the sponsors we have so far,” said McElroy. The team’s cross country website on Shutterfly has a long list of local and area sponsors who are helping out.

“It’s going to be a ball,” said Beeman.

Run for Love is a 5K road race and 1-mile run/walk. Registration is still ongoing and can be done at active.com

Both Tift cross country coaches are optimistic how they will fare.

“We’re inexperienced, but we’re getting better every day,” said Beeman. He said his athletes have been enthusiastic. McElroy, who is in her first year as high school head coach, said “I think we have a pretty good crew.”

Experience and youth will help key the Lady Devils. Seniors include Lizbeth Cortes and Harley Stephens. Ashlee Golden will be a junior. This is a group that McElroy said “always finishes in the top.” Incoming freshmen will see Rebecca Larger and Emily Golden competing.

“We have a chance of placing really well this year,” she said, adding that Kyleigh Marchant is another name on the radar.

Elihud Mendoza and brothers Jared Larger and Lehi Larger are expected to lead Beeman’s charge. “Our top three, probably,” he said. Other established runners are Austin Bennett and Daniel Nixon and he has Will Jones and Carlos Osario coming up.

The coaches had a voluntary summer running program at ABAC and encouraged them to run as much as possible. Beeman said it had paid off. It “put miles underneath their belts,” he said.

The Georgia High School Association has added a new wrinkle for schools this year: sectionals. They will be held late in the season and Tift must qualify and sectionals to make state. Neither Beeman nor McElroy are entirely sure of all the details as this point. Beeman said that now, “it’s a lot tougher to get to state.”

Until then, they will have to contend with their regular season, which will take them on the road Aug. 20 to the Winnersville Classic in Valdosta and end Oct. 15 with a meet at Thomas County Central. Tift’s journeys will cross into Florida (Tallahassee) Aug. 27 and also venture to Leesburg, Bainbridge and Albany.

There are two meets in Albany this year. The first, hosted by Deerfield-Windsor at the former Darton State will be Sept. 24. The next week will be the Westover Invitational. Deerfield is a replacement on the schedule for the Quailtrail Invitational, which in previous years had been hosted in Thomasville. McElroy said she was glad the teams did not have many long travel days.

Beeman said it would be “stiff competition.”

The Lady Devils were a state qualifier a year ago after finishing second at region. The Blue Devils were fifth.