Men’s and Women’s CC Preview 16

The SIUC men’s cross country team returns one of its top-five runners as it gears up for Saturday’s Missouri Valley Conference championships in Springfield, Mo., while the women’s cross country team will attempt to finish at least fourth in conference for the fifth straight year.

Men’s coach Bill Cornell is optimistic about the team’s chances at the conference meet after the return of sophomore Andy Bosak, who has missed the last three meets because of a virus.

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Bosak is back with us, Cornell said. He’s missed some important training, but he will definitely help us.

The Salukis are in a race for the conference championship with a slew of competitors.

Six teams could win it. It’s that close, Cornell said. It just depends on who runs well on Saturday morning.

Illinois State University, Indiana State University, the University of Northern Iowa, Drake University and Southwest Missouri State University will challenge the Salukis for the championship.

Cornell said the team has been looking forward to the conference meet all year.

It’s the big daddy of them all, Cornell said. We’ve been training for it all year.

Sophomore Eric Rushing said the team is uncertain how it will stack up against the other MVC schools, as it has had minimal exposure to the teams in previous meets.

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We’ve only ran against one team (Southwest Missouri State University), so we don’t know how we measure up against the rest of the teams, Rushing said.

For Cornell, the exact team finish is hard to determine.

We’re hoping to see a victory, but we could end up in sixth, Cornell said. We just have to be positive and stay focused at race time.

Women’s coach Don DeNoon said he would be pleased if his team could have a strong finish in the middle of the pack.

Another fourth-place finish would be great, he said. I would like to see us be competitive with the middle group of the conference.

DeNoon said the conference powerhouses this year are Wichita State University and Indiana State University, but he expects challenges from other schools.

(University of) Northern Iowa and Bradley (University) really stepped up and it was kind of unexpected, so we have to challenge them in the middle of the pack, DeNoon said.

DeNoon said the competitiveness between the teams should make for a close meet.

Even between first and second place, it may be hard to know who wins until 30 minutes after the race, DeNoon said. It will be interesting to see what happens.

Junior Leah Steele said the team has not lost sight of its ability to place well, despite last year’s finish.

We want to improve on last year’s performance, Steele said. We are very optimistic about our chances and have been running well in practice.

The team is using the conference meet as a stepping stone for the District V meet Nov. 15 in Ames, Iowa, in which the team finished 13th out of 19 teams last year.

We are going to evaluate our performance at conference and if we don’t compete well at conference, it will be very difficult at the district meet, DeNoon said.

The men’s and women’s cross country teams will compete Saturday in the Missouri Valley Conference Championships in Springfield, Mo. The men’s race begins at 10:30 a.m., and the women start action at 11:30 a.m.