Team uses meet to gain experience

The IU women's cross country team kicked off its season with the Indiana Open Friday night. The home meet was not scored and the only women runners present for the meet were the Hoosiers. Still, the lack of competition gave the Hoosiers a good chance to gain experience.\nRedshirt sophomore Jessica Gall, who sat out last season due to a quadricep injury, was the first woman to cross the finish line. \nEven though the meet was unofficial, Gall said she still took something out of her top place finish.\n"It was fun," Gall said. "It was nice to put on the uniform and spikes again. It's always reassuring to win. I love to race. It just gets my competitive juices flowing."\nGall crossed the finish line in 18 minutes 32 seconds, just two seconds past her goal time.\n"I accomplished my objective, and I think we all got our feet wet finally," she said.\nFreshman Nikki Peterson, who was running in her first collegiate race, crossed the finish line after Gall with a time of 19:51.\n"This was a conservative kind of race," Peterson said. "We were just looking to get race experience under our belt."\nCoach Judy Wilson shared the same sentiments after the race.\n"This was basically a time trial," Wilson said. "It was more of a practice."\nThe team had been training at the Indiana Dunes National Park for this meet and for upcoming meets as well.\n"The girls were still feeling it and have had hard training the past two weeks," Wilson said. \nBloomington South graduate and freshman Maura Ratcliff also had a chance to compete in her first collegiate race Friday night and finished the race with a time of 20:09.\nDue to the lack of competition, the men's and the women's races were run together. They were joined also by a few residents of the Bloomington community.\nWhile the team competed mainly amongst themselves this year, a wide variety of teams have made appearances at this meet in the past. Over the years the Hoosiers have played host to an assortment of teams like South Florida, IU Purdue University-Indianapolis and Louisville. Last year the team won the meet and captured four of the top five slots.\nWhile this meet has traditionally been a low-key meet for the team where everyone runs, junior Kelly Siefker, senior Mindy Peterson and sophomore Kristin Whitezell did not run due to scheduling constraints with the upcoming meet.\nThe Hoosiers will continue their season Friday with another home meet, the Cream and Crimson.\n-- Contact staff writer Andy Romey at aromey@indiana.edu.