Men's Cross Country: Panthers head to Southern Illinois for race without top runners

If the Eastern men's or women's cross country teams do not win the Southern Illinois Saluki Invite this weekend, Eastern head cross country coach Geoff Masanet will not be discouraged.

Masanet said the emphasis for the Panthers this weekend will be on competing and training and not necessarily winning the race.

"This meet does not really affect what we want to do for our season," Masanet said. "But we want to emphasize on getting out fast, maintaining in the middle and manning up towards the end of the race," Masanet said.

The meet will began at 10 a.m. in Carbondale. Southern Illinois-Carbondale, Southeast Missouri, Murray State and Southern Illinois-Edwardsville are the other teams set to compete.

In Eastern's last event on Sept. 12, the EIU Panther Invite, the men's team finished in third place of nine teams, while the women's team finished in sixth place out of seven teams.

The Panthers will not send sophomore Caitlin Napoleoni and freshman Erica Foltys on the women's side and will not send sophomores Jason Springer and Nick Kuczwara on the men's side.

Napoleoni was the top Eastern finisher at the Panther Open but will sit out because of illness. Springer and Kuczwara will not attend so they can continue training for the remainder of the season.

Construction in Carbondale caused the track for the race not to be set until Thursday. The track will be a loop, so the men will have to run four laps, while the women have to run two-and-a-half laps.

Masanet said it is hard to put an exact time on what he wants his team to run because of the uncertainty of the course.

"If the course runs reasonable, I hope our men's team can run in the 25 to 26-minute range," Masanet said. "For our women's team, I hope they can run in the 18 to 19-minute range."

Senior Jake Larson said he is looking for a personal best at the invitational.

"I would like to run in under 27 minutes," Larson said. "I think with a course like this each lap we will become more familiar, and it should be faster."

Larson said loop courses are often easier to run because there are fewer obstacles for the runners. Larson said the team has worked on a number of things over the last two weeks of training that will help them in the meet.

"In practice we have worked on staying alongside each other and making each other faster," Larson said. "I think if we can stay side-by-side in the meet, we will perform well."

Dan Cusack can be reached at 581-7944 or at dscusack@eiu.edu.

Senior Jake Larson runs during the Walt Crawford Alumni Meet on Sept. 6. Larson finished 19th for the Panthers with a time of 21:24. (Karolina Strack/The Daily Eastern News)