Although the IU cross-country team's season technically begins at 9:20 a.m. this Saturday at the IU Championship Cross Country Course with the IU Open, the Hoosiers' preparation began well before their first meet. In fact, they even started preparing before official practice commenced in the fall.
This year’s campaign started as soon as last year’s ended.
If there is one thing IU’s coaches and runners can agree on, it’s that the amount of training put in during the summer offseason can dictate an entire season. For Coach Ron Helmer, the effort put in during the offseason from his runners has been evident.
“This group makes you feel good every day because the effort that we get and the preparation for the season has been really good,” Helmer said. “Right now, we’ve got everybody on the same page and everybody working hard.”
The importance of the offseason was not lost on Helmer’s runners, either. To stay competitive, they said the hard work has to continue beyond just the mandated practices.
“The summer is very critical for cross-country season as a whole," junior Brenna Calder said. "You can always tell who put in a good summer’s work and who didn’t. For me, I’ve been logging high mileage and doing workouts since mid-July. Without that, I don’t think I could run to my potential this fall and especially make it into October and November and still be running well.”
However, with the offseason behind them, the Hoosiers will now look to improve on last season, when three individuals between the men’s and women’s teams qualified for the NCAA Championships, and the men finished third in the Big Ten.
To repeat that success from last year, Helmer said he sees depth on the roster as the main area where this team could be different from last year.
“Our top two or three on both sides are really good,” Helmer said. “We fall off some with the depth after that, but we’ve got people that I think can grow and give us good, solid number 4, 5, 6 and 7 runners, but the depth is not what it has been in the past.”
For the men, sophomore Ben Veatch looks to be the top returner after earning Big Ten Freshman of the Year honors last season. Redshirt sophomores Kyle Mau – the reigning Big Ten Freshman of the Year in Indoor Track – and Bryce Millar will fill out the top three. Meanwhile, veterans such as juniors Joe Murphy and Kyle Burks, and younger talents like freshmen Cooper Williams, Cameron Clements and Teddy Browning, are seen by Helmer as options to fill out the remaining top-seven spots.
Even though they have lost their top two runners from last year in Jason Crist and Matthew Schwartzer to graduation, the Hoosiers still have high expectations for themselves this year.
“As a team, we really think we can be a top-10 or top-20 team,” Mau said. “Making it to the National Championships is a goal, and, of course, with having the Big Ten meet at home, trying to win a Big Ten title here becomes a priority too.”
The women’s team has plenty of firepower returning as well, due in large part to All-American and Big Ten runner-up Katherine Receveur returning for her junior year. She is coming off a stellar campaign in which she finished 11th in the country at the NCAA Championships. However, fellow juniors Maggie Allen and Brenna Calder are close behind to round out the top three, and junior Haley Harris projects to be fourth.
After that, Helmer's squad is blessed with options such as sophomores Kelsey Harris, Lexa Barrott, Grace Walther, Hannah Stoffel and freshman Stacy Morozov, who will all compete for a spot in the top five.
Calder said she believes it is the comradery they have gained with each other through the grueling regimen that comes with the sport that will eventually help them achieve any goals they might have this season.
“Cross-country is very team-oriented,” Calder said. “It’s really hard and really long, so I really appreciate my teammates throughout the season. We work together and kind of work through the struggles together, which helps us become stronger as a unit.”
