Sept. 29, 2005
Normal, Ill. -
After taking last weekend off from competition, the Illinois State men's and women's cross country teams will be back in action Saturday, competing in the 33rd Annual Sean Earl Loyola Lakefront Cross Country Invitational.
The `Birds will be competing in downtown Chicago against one of the largest fields and strongest competition of the season. The women's 5k race is scheduled to begin at 11 a.m., while the men's 8k race will follow at 11:30 a.m.
With the weekend off, head coach Chris Bailey feels confident that his squad is prepared to take on the tough competition.
"Loyola is a pretty intense meet with a lot of teams and lot of good individuals," said Bailey. "We had a weekend off and a good week of training so this will be a chance for us to get in and see where we're at and hopefully we will be a little more rested up. We've run three consecutive weeks and now we'll have a chance to run against some good competition."
Among the competition will be Valley schools Southern Illinois and Missouri State. Competing against these two schools will give Bailey some indication of where his team stands in the Valley.
"We'll see a couple conference schools in Southern Illinois and Missouri State," said Bailey. "SIU's men's team was picked third in the pre-season Valley poll and Missouri State's women's team has won the women's conference championship the past four years. I always like to match us up with other conference schools and see how we stack up against them and evaluate from there."
Jeremy Doherty, who has not competed this season for the Redbirds, will run for the first time this weekend. Captain Dan Tripp and Geoff Houtman, who did not compete at Illinois two weeks ago, will be back in action as well. This will be the first weekend that the men's team will boast a full squad.
"I'm excited to get the men going because this will be the first weekend of the season where we will have all of our top guys competing," said Bailey. "Jeremy hasn't competed yet, but he's put in a good couple weeks. This weekend will tell us where he's at. He hasn't raced in eight months, so he's going to be real rusty and we know that. But I think if he can get a couple races under his belt by conference championship time, he'll be able to contribute in a positive way. This is the men's team we were hoping to have in the beginning, but because of injuries and different things going on, this will be the first weekend that I think the guys will be ready to run."
As for the women's team, Bailey will look for strong performances from captain Betsy McDonald, Kathleen Thompson and Kimberli Smudde, who have been the top three performers for the women's team. Bailey sees these three women leading the team again this weekend.
"For the women's squad it will be the usual suspects, Betsy, Kathleen and Kim leading the way," said Bailey. "I've been really impressed with Suzy (Turner) this past week and a half, so I think she's looking to step up this weekend. Again this is a good meet with good competition so we'll see how the women step up."