The men's cross country team will have two more kilometers thannormal to try and race past its competitors on Saturday at theGreat Lakes Regional meet.
"The way we run is a little bit smarter than a lot of otherpeople, so we're going to be beating a lot of people in those lasttwo kilometers," student assistant Michael Johnson said.
The team will compete in one of the strongest regionsnationwide. Last year, the region had seven at-large bids go to thenational meet.
This year the strongest team should be Wisconsin, which iscurrently ranked second in the nation. Other ranked teams competingin the meet this weekend are Michigan at sixth, Indiana at 11th,Ohio State at 13th, Notre Dame at 18th, Central Michigan at 22ndand Eastern Michigan at 28th.
Johnson said he would like to see the team finish in 12th or13th and finish ahead of the teams -- including Western Michigan,Toledo and Kent State -- that beat the Cardinals in theMid-American Conference meet
"Our region's so tough this year, we'll probably get nine or 10bids to nationals, so 12th or 13th place would be veryrespectable," Johnson said.
The team will look to run a race similar to that of the MAC meetwhen it had the top four runners finish within 10 seconds of eachother.
"For them to run well, they need to run pretty much the racethey ran at MAC," head coach Jermaine Jones said. "We need ourfront people to run a little further toward the front of the race,and we need our five, six, seven guys to pack in a littletighter."
The team members' excitement about how they did at the MAC meetshould help in this meet.
"They have nothing to lose," Jones said. "They're not afavorite; they just go out and run their race and have fun with itand let the results happen."
Read More
Three Air Jam teams take home the win
October 12, 2012Nineteen teams shimmied, shook and flipped for a sold out John R. Emens Auditorium on Thursday night during the 25th annual Air Jam.
Bill Clinton Speaks at North Central High School
October 12, 2012Former President's Speech Could Have Effect on State Senate Race
