Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Cross Country prepares for final regular-season meet
10/12/2006 | 12:00:00 | Cross Country
Oct. 12, 2006
By Matt Crouch
www.SIUSalukis.com
CARBONDALE, Ill. - The Southern Illinois University men's and women's cross country teams return to action for their final regular-season meet on Friday, Oct. 13 at the Bradley Classic.
Hosted by Bradley University, the Bradley Classic is a 12-team meet that will see the women run a 6K with the men running an 8K. The course for the Bradley Classic is set up at Newman Golf Course in Peoria, Ill.
The Salukis are coming off of a sweep at last weekend's Saluki Invitational. Both teams came away with the team title while SIU's Mohamed Mohamed also earned an individual title as he ran the 8K in a personal best time of 24:32.68.
Competing in the Bradley Classic was a last-minute scheduling decision as the Salukis were originally set to run at the Pre-Nationals hosted by Indiana State.
SIU head coach Matt Sparks says the decision was made to run at Bradley because of the resemblance to the State Farm/Missouri Valley Conference Championship, which is coming up on Oct. 28. The size of the field and atmosphere should greatly resemble the MVC Championship while the meet will also give SIU a chance to compete against MVC foes Illinois State, Drake and Bradley.
Heading into the meet, Sparks is confident in his team's chance to challenge for the win.
The women will be competing with senior Lindsay Wagner back in the lineup as she sat out last weekend because of illness.
"Lindsay Wagner had a great week of practice. She is one that we have been waiting for all year to get back in the swing of things after earning all-conference in 2004. We expect her to really step up in the next couple of weeks," said Sparks.
" With Lindsay back in it, we have a great top six, a very solid pack. One of the things that we stress and work on is out one-to-five gap and the women's team has had a 15-second gap, which is almost unheard of. We just need to work on the pack being more competitive, hopefully up in the top 10 in this race this weekend."
The men's team will be competing without sophomore Mohamed Mohamed this weekend as Sparks made the decision to keep the team leader out, not because of and problems, but because of his success.
"Mohamed has been running so well that he is actually not going to compete this weekend. He is going to make the trip just to check out the future regional course. He has been running so well that we are going to let him rest, stay fresh and race-ready," said Sparks.
"Keeping Mohamed out will also allow some of the freshmen that have been running in our five, six, seven positions to get a little more pressure to come through and perform. We would still like to challenge for the win on the men's side, even with our top runner not competing."
The women's 6K is set to begin Friday at 4:15 p.m. with the men's 8K scheduled to follow at 5 p.m.
