Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Southern Illinois University
Saluki Early Bird
Youth holds serve at Saluki Early Bird
09/03/2010 | 12:00:00 | Cross Country
Sept. 3, 2010
Women's Results - Men's Results
By Michael Benson
SIUSalukis.com
CARBONDALE, Ill. - It's official: the Saluki cross country youth movement has begun.
Despite resting most of its top runners, SIU still emerged with impressive performances from its underclassmen as the team hosted the Saluki Early Bird Friday in Carbondale.
Sophomore Lucas Cherry, who only competed in one race in 2009, won the men's 6K race with a time of 19:38.4. The Carbondale native finished ten seconds ahead of second place finisher Kevin McKee of Missouri.
"On the men's side, the real highlight of the night was Lucas Cherry winning the race," said head coach Matt Sparks. "It's something we had talked about during the week is for him to put himself in a position to win. He's starting to establish himself as somebody we can look to in the season to make a contributing effort to the team."
Meanwhile, the men's squad's four freshmen - Cole Allison, Brian Dixon, Kulayifi Haji, and Nick Schrader - each notched top ten finishes as unattached runners. Haji led the group with a third place showing, followed by Dixon and Allison rounding out the top five and Schrader in seventh.
Though all four will likely be redshirted for this season, their running was still impressive, Sparks commented.
In the women's race, highly-touted freshman Eileen Schweiss provided a quality race in her Southern Illinois debut, finishing a team-high seventh place on the 4K course with a time of 15:40.4.
"We had a lot of girls who had never run a collegiate cross country race before," Sparks said. "Leading the way for us was Eileen and we are definitely going to have to count on her to run varsity for us throughout the entire year."
Senior Shanthi Blanchard also made the most out of her Saluki debut by finishing 14th with a time of 17:10. The Carbondale native and Santa Clara University transfer was followed closely by teammate Kelsey Kaiser, who crossed the finish line with a time of 17:33.3.
"It was a good experience for everybody - both men and women - to get that first race under their belt and learn what it was about and go from there," Sparks said.
The Salukis will return to action next Friday, September 10, when they travel to Charleston, Ill., for the EIU Panther Open.
Players Mentioned
