Sept. 13, 2007
NORMAL, Ill-- -
The Illinois State cross country teams debut at home for the first time since 2004 as the Redbirds host the Illinois Intercollegiate Championships Friday at Weibring Golf Club at Illinois State University. The women's 5K begins at 5 p.m., and the men's 8K will follow at 5:30 p.m.
The Illinois Cross Country Intercollegiate Championships returns after a hiatus of more than 21 years. A total of 25 Illinois colleges, spread across the NCAA, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) and the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA), will be in attendance.
Head cross country coach Jeff Bovee is excited to see how the ISU men's and women's teams will respond to running at home, as well as running a longer distance race.
"I would like for our teams to place in the top-three," said Bovee. "If our teams run well, we will be able to gauge the progress we are making. We are a young team, and for the freshmen this will be their first 5K and 8K."
Leading the Redbird men's cross country team will be junior Mike Richardson, sophomores Scott Krapf and Jordan Anderson and freshman Matt Mroczynski.
"I think tomorrow we are going to see our top-four finish strong," said Bovee. "However, our freshmen Luke Ryan, Jon Roberts and John Navarro, along with Brian Syring, have really been looking good at practice. We are hoping those four can bridge the gap with our first four on the men's side."
Leading the Redbird women will be senior Suzy Turner, juniors Kathleen Thompson and Stacey Turilli and sophomre Kim Ebbesen.
"The women's team will be adding a couple of freshmen that did not run at the Illini Challenge," said Bovee. "Brianna Officer will also be running in her first cross country race. She is a junior 400-meter runner; so it will be exciting to see how she does."
The Illinois Intercollegiate Championships has not been held since 1985; however, the last time cross country runners ran the newly renamed Weibring Golf Club at Illinois University course was in 1973. This year, a new course was designed for cross country runners and will make its debut at the Illinois Intercollegiate Championships.
Bovee is happy with the newly designed course and feels that runners will view the course as relatively fast.
"I think that the course itself is a relatively fast course," said Bovee. "There is a 200-meter hill just after the 1,000-meter mark, but other than that, the course is relatively flat with a few undulations.
"What is really great about this meet is that the kids that grew up in the state of Illinois and now run at different colleges around Illinois get to continue their high school rivalries in college," said Bovee. "For many years, a student-athlete who went to a smaller school did not have the opportunity to run against a Division I school, and vice versa. Now, with the Illinois Intercollegiate, athletes are going to be able to do that and also see who the best team in Illinois is regardless of division."
The Illinois Intercollegiate features six Division I, one Division II, six Division III, three NAIA and nine NJCAA teams.
NCAA Division I schools that will be in attendance include the regionally-ranked Illinois State men's and women's teams; the nationally-ranked Illinois women's team; the Illini men, who are ranked No. 8 in the Midwest region poll; as well as the Illinois-Chicago men and women; Northwestern women; Northern Illinois women's team; and Loyola.
Lewis University is the only university that will be representing the NCAA Division II level. Lewis' men's cross country team was ranked No. 7 in the Great Lakes Region preseason poll.
Six Division III schools will be in attendance, including Augustana College, Illinois Wesleyan, Millikin, Monmouth, North Central College and the University of Chicago. Augustana's men's team is ranked No. 28 nationally and North Central's men's and women's teams are ranked No. 6 and 29, respectively.
Olivet Nazarene, Robert Morris and Trinity Christian will represent the NAIA. Olivet Nazarene women's cross country team was ranked No. 7 nationally in the NAIA preseason polls and the men's team was picked No. 1 in its region.
Nine teams from the NJCAA will be in attendance, including the 2006 NJCAA Men's National Cross Country Champion Rend Lake. Other NJCAA schools that will be participating are Carl Sandburg, Greenville, Harper, Illinois Central College, Illinois College, Lincoln College, Moraine Valley and Morton College.
The Illinois Intercollegiate Championships is scheduled to begin at the Weibring Golf Club at Illinois State at 5 p.m., with the running of the women's 5K. The men's 8K will follow after the completion of the women's race at 5:30 p.m. Unattached entries are welcome to run the course. The women's unattached entries are scheduled to begin at 6:15 p.m., followed by the men's unattached entries at 6:45 p.m.
