Wait until next year.

What began as a possible rebuilding year for a young and inexperienced SIUC squad, the men’s cross-country team finished its season ranked 22nd in the nation.

The 22nd place finish at the NCAA Championships Nov. 20 came as the low point in a highly successful season for the Salukis, who won the Missouri Valley Conference title, but the best news is yet to come for the Dawgs.

Advertisement

The team will return its top six runners next season three of them as sophomores.

Freshmen Andrew Fooks, Jeremy Parks and Joseph Parks all will return with NCAA Championship experience, along with juniors Stelios Marneros and Josh Daly.

SIUC coach Bill Cornell said the experience of this season will greatly benefit the team next year.

I’m excited about what happend with such a young team, he said. I thought this season might be a rebuilding year, but it’s probably the best team I’ve had since coming here. They know they could have done better, but that will come with experience. Twenty-second is nothing to sneeze about, and I hope we can make it again next year.

When the team received notice that it had been granted one of the three at-large spots for the championship, members of the squad set a goal of placing 15th in the race.

The squad fell short of the goal, but SIUC coach Bill Cornell said finishing 22nd is nothing to be ashamed about.

Everyone was down. They had hopes of placing 15th or 16th, but when you run against top teams, you should be proud to have been there, Cornell said.

Advertisement*

The most disappointed member of the team may be Marneros, who had set a goal at the start of the season to reach the NCAA Championships.

After winning the MVC for the second consecutive year, Marneros finished 161st in the race behind two freshmen (Fooks and Jeremy Parks), and said he was tired from the long, strenuous season.

I was feeling tired in the last two meets. During the season you hit a peak, and that was the conference meet for me, he said. From there, you gradually go down. I ran a 34:30, and I’ve never run that since I was 13 years old.

Cornell points at the District 5 meet as the cause for the performance of the team, and the district teams in the championship also.

I think the district meet was too tough, and it tired a lot of runners out. The wind was tremendous, too. It really cut into the runners for the first mile or mile and a half, he said. A lot can happen when the championship is on the line. Wisconsin was picked to finish third and they ended up 14th, and Iowa State who was picked to finish seventh, ended up 18th. We were picked as the 22nd team, and that’s where we placed.