IU prepares for Big Ten Championships
The No. 15-ranked IU women’s swimming and diving team is headed to Columbus, Ohio, for the Big Ten Championships beginning Wednesday, Feb. 18.
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The No. 15-ranked IU women’s swimming and diving team is headed to Columbus, Ohio, for the Big Ten Championships beginning Wednesday, Feb. 18.
Both the IU women’s and men’s swimming and diving teams competed over the weekend.
The men and women’s swimming and diving teams will be very busy this weekend, as they will be competing in a total of three matches between the two teams.
Both Indiana’s men’s and women’s teams managed comeback victories Saturday against Purdue in their senior night dual meets.
Last year, both Andy Bayer and Zach Mayhew were All-American cross country runners and the top two runners for the Hoosiers. After graduating, their success will have to be replaced this year.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Hoosiers’ track and field team opened the indoor season by playing host to their first of five home indoor competitions Friday and Saturday in the Hoosier Open at Gladstein Fieldhouse in a non–scoring event.IU Coach Ron Helmer said he saw runners competing hard even though their performances were not necessarily outstanding performances. “I saw a lot of places where we competed hard,” Helmer said. “The result of the performance maybe didn’t mirror the level of the intensity of the competition.” There were some performances on Friday that will be recorded in the IU record books. Senior Arianne Raby, who finished fourth in the 3,000-meter run at the Gladstein Invitational last year, set a school record in the 1,000-meter race this year. Raby won first place with a time of 2 minutes and 48 seconds. The previous record for the women’s indoor 1,000-meter race was set by former IU runner Collette Gourdreau in 1987. Gourdreau ran a time of 2 minutes and 49 seconds, and after 27 years, Raby set a new record.“I didn’t even know I had the record until some people told me,” Raby said. “I just wanted to PR (personal record) today. I PR’d at 2:50, and I ran faster today, so yeah. I was pretty happy about it.”Between the men’s and women’s races, the Hoosiers had multiple competitors making Indiana’s top 10 all-time list. Sophomore Nina Gutermuth placed first in the women’s pole vault. Gutermuth entered IU’s top 10 placing on Friday by clearing 12 feet and 5.5 inches, the ninth best in Indiana history.The Hoosiers took first and second place in the women’s 5,000-meter run. Senior Erica Ridderman took first by crossing the line in 17 minutes and one second. Freshman Amanda Behnke finished 16 seconds later with a time of 17 minutes and 17 seconds to take second place.Another top 10 title for the Hoosiers came out of the women’s throwing event. Freshman Nakal McClinton finished fourth overall with a throw of 56 feet and 11.75 inches. That’s the 10th best throw in the school’s history as a freshman.“The day went pretty well,” McClinton said. “It felt good to compete again, and I’m glad I am competing for IU.”Sophomore Jordan Gornall also made the Indiana record books in his 1,000-meter race. His second-place finish at two minutes and 24 seconds was the second fastest all time for Indiana. Sophomore Zach Bray finished fifth in the 60-meter hurdles, placing him at No. 10 for the all-time fastest in Indiana history. Bray finished in 8.29 seconds. Saturday’s competition was the men and women’s pentathlon. Sophomore Dylan Anderson was the top-place finisher for the Hoosiers, finishing second overall in the men’s pentathlon.“We’re not this high-level track-and-field team right now,” Helmer said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do, but the spirit is there, and the want to is there and the work effort is there. Tonight the effort was there. We’ve just got to keep pushing and keep working.”Follow reporter Frank Bonner on Twitter @Frank_Bonner1.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU track and field team will start the indoor season this weekend when it plays host to its first indoor track meet on Friday. The competition will be a two-day event and it will end on Saturday with the men’s and women’s pentathlon.IU Coach Ron Helmer said he expects a solid performance from his distance runners.“The cross country athletes who were at peak fitness a couple of weeks ago, it is pretty easy to sustain that to this week,” Helmer said. “I expect that we are going to get some pretty good marks in the distance events.” Junior Rorey Hunter just finished the cross country season by competing in the 2013 NCAA Cross Country Championships. Hunter was a part of last year’s All-American Distance Medley Relay team that finished fourth at the 2013 NCAA Indoor Championships. He will run in the one-kilometer race for the Hoosiers on Friday. “The 1K is a bit of a difference from the 10K I ran a few weeks ago at Nationals,” Hunter said. “I’ve had a couple weeks of training for a faster pace race but definitely not enough time for optimal results.”According to Helmer, the majority of the distance runners also run on the cross country team so they have been training all year. The sprinters started their first preseason workout the first Tuesday after Labor Day. “We went into the Tuesday after Labor Day, we started our preseason work and then it was the 26th of October when we were able to start full time workouts.” Senior Kyla Buckley is a thrower for the Hoosiers who won the Big Ten Indoor Championship in shot put last year. Buckley is not looking for a specific mark to hit this weekend. She said her goal for Friday’s meet is to get back into the swing of things. “I’m just going to go out and throw,” Buckley said. “There is not a certain mark I want to hit. I had surgery in September so I’m kind of coming back from that.”This will be the first of five home meets for the IU Indoor season. The first race will be the 60-meter trials at 5 p.m. in the Gladstein Fieldhouse. The field events will begin at 5:15 p.m., starting with the women’s 20-pound weight throw. “The first meet is always just fun to get the little jitters out and then go from there,” Buckley said. “I just have to slow down let it out and have fun.” Follow reporter Frank Bonner on Twitter @Frank_Bonner1.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Both the men’s and women’s cross country teams received bids to compete in the NCAA Championships on Saturday in Terra Haute. IU Coach Ron Helmer said winning was not the main goal for the Hoosiers in the regional race.Helmer said he did not want the men’s team to exhaust themselves by trying to win the regional. He wanted to make sure their legs were fresh enough to compete well in the NCAA Championships.“I think we came out of the Regional race really well,” Helmer said. “I’m very optimistic that we recovered well and we’ll be just fine with their second 10k in eight days.”After missing last year’s season because of an injury, senior Samantha Ginther is in her final year wearing an IU cross country uniform. Although the entire women’s team has not qualified for the national meet since the 2009 season, Ginther competed as an individual qualifier two seasons ago. This year Ginther said the women’s team has the potential to finish in the top 20. “I think we’re definitely capable of that, and I think we just need to all come together and have good races on the same day for once,” Ginther said.The men’s team is expecting to place in the top 10 Saturday. Senior Robby Nierman will help lead the way for the Hoosiers in hopes of a top 10 finish. Neirman competed in the NCAA Championships last year. He was the second Hoosier to cross, finishing the 10-kilometer race in 31 minutes and 56 seconds. The men’s team placed 18th overall.“This year I really think we can get top 10. On a good day, we could be on the podium,” Nierman said. The NCAA Championships will start with the men’s race at noon. Following the men’s 10-kilometer race will be the women’s 8-kilometer race. The two races will be on the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course. There will be a total of three Big Ten schools competing in the men’s race and six Big Ten schools in the women’s race. “Nationals is always pretty crazy,” Neirman said. “Some teams will do lights out, and some teams will just kind of blow up. It all depends on the day, but I really believe in our team.” Follow cross country reporter Frank Bonner on Twitter @Frank_Bonner1.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>This past Friday, the Indiana cross country team traveled to Madison, Wis., to compete in the Great Lakes Regional Meet.The Hoosiers were able to qualify both the men’s and women’s teams to the NCAA Championships.“In my mind, the purpose of the Regional is to do what it takes to get the job done,” IU Coach Ron Helmer said. “Both our men and women did that, and we’ll take that.”The men placed fourth Friday, making it their fourth consecutive year in a row qualifying for the national race. Junior Evan Esselink crossed the line first for the Hoosiers and placed 11th overall. The women placed sixth, allowing them to qualify for the first time since 2009. Senior Samantha Ginther finished first for the Hoosiers, placing 10th overall.“I felt like the men ran extremely controlled and extremely well,” Helmer said. “On the women’s side, we aren’t as deep and as strong as I wish we were, but we were still able to get a high enough bid.” There will be a total of 31 teams that will be competing in the NCAA Championships. The other Big Ten teams who qualified for the men are No. 16 Michigan and No. 19 Wisconsin. Five other Big Ten schools qualified on the women’s side. No. 6 ranked Michigan State, No. 14 Michigan, No. 16 Minnesota, Wisconsin and Penn State all received national meet bids coming out of the Big Ten.Now that the Regional race is behind them, the Hoosiers will focus on the NCAA Championships. The race will be in Terre Haute, and the time is yet to be determined. Helmer said he is optimistic about the men’s chances of doing well. However, he is not as confident in the women’s team.“On the men’s side, we’ve got the type of team that can do very well,” Helmer said. “On the women’s side, we have to work really hard just to keep from getting embarrassed.”Follow cross country reporter Frank Bonner on Twitter @Frank_Bonner1.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>IU Coach Ron Helmer and the cross country team will travel Friday to Madison, Wis., to compete in the Great Lakes Regional. The University of Wisconsin will have the race on their Thomas Zimmer Championships Cross Country Course. The first four runners to cross the finish line will automatically advance to the NCAA Championship Race. The top two teams will automatically advance their entire team to the NCAA Championships. The teams not in the top two will be selected to advance. “We just need a solid performance, I’m not really worried about if we win the regional or not or even if we’re in the top two,” Helmer said. “I can’t put all my eggs in the regional basket and give up my chance to be good at the national meet.” The men’s team is ranked No. 1 in the region, and the women’s team is ranked at No. 6. The men’s team has been able to qualify their entire team for the NCAA Championship for three consecutive years. However, the women’s team has not advanced their full team since 2009. Although the men’s team is ranked No. 1, Helmer is still aware of the quality of competition that will be there.“I still think Wisconsin is pretty good at home, and Michigan is really good over 10,000 meters,” Helmer said.Sophomore Matt Schwartzer ran in the Regional race last year as a true freshman. He finished in 40th place and ran the 10-kilometer race in 32 minutes and 12 seconds. Freshman Amanda Behnke will be running in her first regional race this year. Behnke was redshirted last season. Despite the implications of the race, Behnke said the team did not train any differently for this weekend.“We’ve just been doing what we’ve been doing all along,” Behnke said. “All the other races have been going just fine, so we keep the training the same.”Prior to the Great Lakes Regional was the Big Ten Championship. Wisconsin had won the Big Ten Championship for 14 consecutive years before this year. The Hoosiers were able to end their streak by winning for the first time in 33 years.The Hoosiers will compete against Wisconsin once again on Friday. Schwartzer said they are even more prepared than they were for the Big Ten Championship. “Our workouts haven’t been as hard as they were in the beginning of the season, but we all run lots of miles, and we can hold our fitness pretty well,” Schwartzer said. The men’s race will start their race at 1 p.m. Friday, while the women’s race start time is scheduled at 2:15 p.m. The men will be running a 10-kilometer race, while the women will be running 6 kilometers.Follow reporter Frank Bonner on Twitter @Frank_Bonner1.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU cross country team played host to its last meet of the regular season at the IU Championships Cross Country course during the weekend.The runners competing in this race were the runners who will not be competing in the Great Lakes Regionals and the races following.IU Coach Ron Helmer said he was pleased with how the team raced on Saturday. “The first thing you look at is you want people to compete hard, and I thought they did compete hard,” Helmer said. “I thought they stuck their nose in, and we had people running PR’s for this course.”The two top runners for the men’s team were sophomore Owen Skeete and junior Nolan Fife.Skeete crossed the line behind Fife, crossing the line in third place after 25 minutes and 13.9 seconds.“It was nice to get out here and get it on our home course to finish off a good block of training that we had,” Fife said.Junior Molly Winters finished first for the women’s team, crossing the line in sixth place in 18 minutes and 33 seconds.Freshman Kelsey Kluesner also finished in the top 10 for the Hoosiers.Kluesner finished in 10th place overall, crossing the line in 19 minutes and 21 seconds.The remaining Hoosiers who did not compete Saturday will continue to finish the rest of the season.However, the runners who competed Saturday ran their last race and will now focus on the indoor track season.Fife’s main events for the indoor track season will be the mile and 3k races. The training for track starts immediately. “We will bring the intensity down a bit for a couple of weeks just to freshen up a little bit,” Nolan said. “We will have time off of racing but will probably actually increase mileage a little bit in training.”Dec. 13 will be the Hoosier Open for the indoor track season.The NCAA Great Lakes Regional Race for the cross country team will be on Friday in Madison, Wis.The time of the race has not yet been determined.Follow cross country reporter Frank Bonner on Twitter @Frank_Bonner1.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The regular season for the IU cross country team will come to a close after today’s meet at the IU Championships Cross Country Course. The non-varsity runners who will not be competing in the Great Lakes Regional race next weekend will be the runners competing Friday. This will be their last race of this year’s cross country season. IU Coach Ron Helmer said he does not have a particular time in which he expects his runners to finish.“Tomorrow is more of a season-culminating meet for those people who haven’t qualified to go on,” Helmer said.Helmer only needs seven runners to finish out the rest of the season because that is the maximum number of runners that can compete in the races that are left. However, Helmer decided to keep a total of eight men on the roster for the men’s team because he will not have junior Rorey Hunter race in the Great Lakes Regional, but in the meets after. “I won’t necessarily run my best seven at regionals,” Helmer said. “I will sit one of those guys and let number eight run, and that’s just because I don’t think Rorey Hunter has two 10k cross country races in him.” Although there will be multiple teams competing, today’s race will be a non-scoring event. Michigan, Wabash and Indiana State will have all of their non-varsity men racing. Purdue and Butler will have their men’s and women’s non-varsity runners competing. “Everybody’s got more than just seven or eight guys,” Helmer said. “And a lot of these guys are your future. When they’re ready to run it’s good to line them up.” Follow reporter Frank Bonner on Twitter @Frank_Bonner1.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The men’s cross-country team won its first Big Ten Championship in 33 years this weekend in Lafayette, Ind.Freshman Jason Crist was the first runner to cross for the Hoosiers, placing fifth with a time of 24 minutes and 24 seconds.IU Coach Ron Helmer said he was pleased with how the men ran on Sunday.“I couldn’t be happier. I was extremely proud of them,” Helmer said. Indiana had three other runners who finished in the top 10.Junior Rorey Hunter, freshman Carl Smith and sophomore Matt Swchwartzer were the other runners who helped lead the pack for the Hoosiers. Hunter finished in seventh place with Smith right behind him in eighth. Swchwartzer crossed the finish line in 10th place to help the Hoosiers score 51 points, which was 15 points fewer than second place Michigan. “We knew we had a chance, but we knew we couldn’t make any mistakes,” Helmer said. “For a bunch of young guys to go out and run like they did, we did a great job.” Crist and Hunter were awarded First Team All-Big Ten Honors for finishing in the top seven. Smith and Schwartzer received second team all-conference. On paper, the women were predicted to place fourth but instead finished two spots lower than expected.Senior Samantha Ginther was awarded First Team All-Big Ten Honors for her seventh place finish. Ginther helped the women place sixth at the Big Ten Championships.“On the women’s side we didn’t do as well,” Helmer said. Ginther was the only runner to finish the 6-kilometer race in the top 10 with a time of 21 minutes and eight seconds.Freshman Amanda Behnke finished second for the Hoosiers, placing 24th overall.Junior Kelsey Duerksen placed 34th right in front of junior Brianna Johnson who placed 35th. Senior Erica Ridderman was the fifth Hoosier to finish at 58th overall. The next competition for the Hoosiers is the NCAA Great Lakes Regional on Nov. 15 in Madison, Wis.The men’s team can build on the momentum it gained in the Big Ten Championships to help prepare them for the regional competition. “The work ethic is there,” Helmer said. “The want to is there. We just need to keep ourselves going.”
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The No. 24 ranked men’s cross country team will travel with the No. 21 women’s cross country team Sunday to West Lafayette to race in the Big Ten Championships. The men will compete against two ranked opponents: No. 7 Wisconsin, the defending champion, and No. 16 Michigan. The women will compete against five teams ranked in the top 30; No. 6 Michigan State, No. 14 Michigan and No. 15 Minnesota are the three teams ranked higher than IU. IU Coach Ron Helmer has confidence in his team’s preparation for this weekend.“Workout wise, I would be hard pressed to think that there are too many teams that are a whole lot better than we are on that level,” Helmer said. “In terms of preparation I would be hard pressed to think that there are too many teams that are better than we are there.”This is the first time the women’s team has been ranked since the 2010 season, and the Hoosiers’ No. 21 ranking is the highest since 2004. Junior Kelsey Duerksen, who has been named Runner of the Week twice this season, has been a major factor in the team’s success this year.“We are expected to get about fourth place with our national ranking,” Duerksen said.Helmer said the top seven for the men has not yet been decided. The 12 runners that could be in the top seven have been cut down to nine. On paper, the men’s team is expected to place third, sitting behind Wisconsin and Michigan. However, junior Evan Esslink said he believes the Hoosiers have the potential to compete well against their competition. “Michigan and Wisconsin are going to be our main competition, but we have a deeper team than they do,” Esslink said.According to Esslink, the top six runners last season were all seniors, which means this year’s Big Ten Championships will have a number of new faces crossing the finish line in the top ten. “I just need everybody to put together a race that’s at the higher end of what range we would expect them to be able to race at giving their workouts,” Helmer said. “If we can do that we should be one of the top three teams in some order or another.”Follow reporter Frank Bonner on Twitter @Frank_Bonner1.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Junior Kelsey Duerksen has landed her second Big Ten Athlete of the Week award this season.The Big Ten tabbed Duerksen for the award Tuesday. Duerksen helped the Hoosiers finish 12th at the adidas Invitational during the weekend. IU competed against 17 nationally-ranked teams. She ran her fastest 6-kilometer time of the year, clocking in at 20 minutes and four seconds.She now has a combined total of five Big Ten Athlete of the Week awards in her track and cross country college career. Duerksen received her first award Sept. 21 after she competed at the Indiana Intercollegiate meet. She finished the women’s 5-kilometer race in 17 minutes and 28 seconds. Tuesday’s National Coaches Poll has ranked Indiana’s women’s team at No. 21. They have not been nationally ranked since 2010. The women’s No. 21 ranking is the highest they have been since they were ranked No. 21 in Oct. 2004. With the men being ranked at No. 24, this marks the first time that both the men’s and women’s teams have been ranked in the top 25 since 2010. The women’s team will be looking to send their first full team to the NCAA Championships this year for the first time since 2009.— Frank Bonner
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>When IU Coach Ron Helmer gets a freshman on the cross country team, he usually redshirts the athlete.Helmer said the majority of the freshmen who join IU’s men’s and women’s cross country teams are redshirted their first year, which allows him to help them adjust to collegiate cross country.Helmer said his main focus for the runners in their first year is learning how to train. However, the Hoosiers do come across runners like freshman Bethany Neeley, who is currently competing for IU as a true freshman. Jeremy Coughler is a freshman this year, too, and Helmer said he is training well. “Some of these kids trained pretty high volume in high school, so it is much easier for them,” Helmer said. “Jeremy Coughler is an example. He is running really well, but he did a lot of volume in high school.”Sophomore Matt Schwartzer is in his second year competing for the Hoosiers. Schwartzer ran in the Big Ten Championships as a true freshman last year. He placed 25th overall, and he competed in the NCAA Championships race last year as well. Schwartzer said two major differences between college and high school are the race distance and the competition.In high school, both men and women run a 5-kilometer race. In college the men run an extra three kilometers, making it an 8-kilometer race. The women switch to a 6-kilometer race in college. Schwartzer said the number of quality runners jumps to a higher level in college competition.“In a competitive race in high school, you might have one or two guys that you have to beat,” Schwartzer said. “In a college race you have to beat 25 to 30 guys that are as talented as you.”Neeley and Schwartzer adjusted to the training in different ways. Schwartzer said he was sore every day last year because of the amount of training.“Walking to class was one of the hardest things,” Schwartzer said. “My calves were sore. I ran twice as much my first cross country season than I did when I was a senior in high school.” Neeley is running an estimated 15 to 20 miles more a week than she did in high school. She has been practicing this type of training for over two months now. Neeley has become familiar with the change and mileage. “Since I have been doing it now for two months straight I’m pretty used to it,” Neeley said. “It sounds like a lot, but it doesn’t feel like a lot.”Since Neeley is currently in her freshman year and the championship races have not yet started, she has not had the opportunity to race in the NCAA Championships race. However, Schwartzer did have the opportunity to compete as a true freshman last year. Schwartzer said he felt more pressure at his high school state meet to perform well than he did at the NCAA Championships last year. “As a freshman running at the national meet I wasn’t expected to do anything so I didn’t have any pressure,” Schwartzer said. “Running at the state meet you are expected to win. Running at the national meet is like a win-win — people are going to say good job, and if you do bad you’re a freshman in your first 10k.”According to Helmer, it can take up to two years to get a runner to reach the training and level of competition that the Hoosiers are looking for. The amount of time it takes for a runner to reach the ideal level of training depends on their high school mileage and how much training they did in the summer before the season. “Some are ready for it pretty quickly because if they do the work they are supposed to over the summer before they get here, that helps to transition them to that higher volume,” Helmer said.Follow reporter Frank Bonner on Twitter @Frank_Bonner1.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Hoosiers’ cross country team competed in two races on Saturday.IU Coach Ron Helmer split the team between the Adidas Invitational in Madison, Wis., and the Pre-Nationals race in Terra Haute, Ind. The women placed 12th as a team overall in the Adidas Invitational, and the men finished in 17th place.Junior Kelsey Duerksen was the first Hoosier to finish the women’s 6-kilometer race, crossing the line in 20 minutes and four seconds.Duerksen finished in 12th place overall. Her teammate, senior Samantha Ginther, finished six seconds behind her, crossing the line in 20 minutes and 10 seconds to finish 20th overall. Other runners who ran in the Hoosiers’ top five to help secure the 12th-place Indiana finish were senior Erica Ridderman and freshmen Amanda Behnke and Chanlie Mundy. The men were led by freshman Carl Smith, who finished in 36th place.Smith ran the men’s 8-kilometer race in 23 minutes and 54 seconds. Junior Evan Esselink was the second Hoosier to finish, crossing the line in 23 minutes and 59 seconds to capture 48th place. Junior JR Ricker, sophomore Rorey Hunter and senior Robby Nierman were the other top five runners for IU. The women who competed in the Pre-Natioanls race placed 22nd as a team.The average race time for the entire team was 22 minutes and 53 seconds. Junior Molly Winters had the fastest time for the Hoosiers, running a time of 20 minutes and five seconds. Her overall placing was 52nd. Senior Samantha Gwin finished behind Winters, running a time of 22 minutes and 16 seconds for a 65th-place finish. The men who represented IU at the Pre-Nationals race finished in 21st place.Their average time as a team was 24 minutes and 44 seconds. Sophomore Matt Schwartzer led the Hoosiers, finishing in 24 minutes and 11 seconds. He had a 49th-place finish overall. His teammate, freshman Jason Crist, finished second for the Hoosiers.Crist ran a time of 24 minutes and 17 seconds, giving him a 58th-place finish. The Hoosiers can now start looking ahead to the Big Ten Championships, as that will be their next competition.That race will take place Nov. 3 in West Lafayette. — Frank Bonner
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The IU cross country team will have its hands full this weekend competing in two separate races. Part of the team will travel to Terre Haute to compete in Pre-Nationals at 11 a.m. Saturday. IU Coach Ron Helmer will send runners to the adidas Invitational in Madison, Wis., on the same day. The adidas Invitational race will start at noon.“On the women’s side, we’re sending our top seven to Wisconsin,” Helmer said. “On the men’s side, we’re a lot deeper and so the seven I am sending to Wisconsin are probably our better seven, but not necessarily our best seven.” Helmer said the top seven runners for the women are more distinct because the women’s team is not as deep as the men’s team. However, the men’s top seven runners have yet to be set in stone for the Hoosiers. Because of the fact there are two races this weekend, there will be more opportunities for the men to improve their times to establish a spot in the top seven. “The group that is going to Pre-Nationals should be a very strong group,” Helmer said. “It allows me to put more people in situations that matter, and I need to see who’s going to respond and perform with that kind of responsibility.”Sophomore Kyle Overway will compete in the Pre-Nationals race.Overway said he is looking forward to competing in the fast race this year and having a chance to compete against schools like Oklahoma and Colorado. “It’s just a really good experience for a group of guys who may have not run a race of this caliber.” Overway said. “We have a lot of young guys with our top seven going to Wisconsin. We still have a solid top five just because of the depth we have.” This will be the fifth annual adidas Invitational. Thirty-five men’s and 36 women’s teams will compete Saturday. Both races will consist of a men’s 8-kilometer race and a women’s 6-kilometer race. The adidas Invitational will start with the men’s race and finish with the women’s race. The Pre-Nationals meet will start with the men’s race and the women’s race will follow, as well. However, the Pre-Nationals race also has a men and women’s white race and open race. So there will be six total races at the Pre-Nationals meet.Junior Brianna Johnson will compete in the adidas Invitational race. “We’re approaching it just with the mentality of giving it our best effort,” Johnson said. “Hopefully every week we get faster and faster and the work outs have proved that’s what we’re doing, so I think we’re prepared.” Follow reporter Frank Bonner on Twitter @Frank_Bonner1.
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>Senior cross country runner Samantha Ginther and junior cross country runner JR Ricker were both named Big Ten Cross Country Athletes of the Week by the Big Ten Conference Tuesday afternoon. Junior Kelsey Duerksen won the award earlier in the year, bringing the IU cross country team’s total to three.Both Ginther and Ricker competed in the Lehigh Paul Short Run last weekend. Ricker helped the men’s team walk away with a first place team finish by running the eight-kilometer race in 24 minutes and 12 seconds for a 10th place individual finish. Ginther helped the women’s team place sixth overall by being the first Hoosier to finish the six-kilometer race. She finished in 20 minutes and 10 seconds, bringing home a second overall finish individually. The awards were individual accomplishments by Ginther and Ricker, but their performances at Lehigh University helped create another team accomplishment as well. The IU men’s team is now ranked No. 12 in the nation. The women’s team is now also knocking on the door of breaching the national rankings. IU is receiving votes in the coaches poll, tallying the second most votes of schools that are not currently ranked in the top 30. The Hoosiers will race again Oct. 19. — Frank Bonner
____simple_html_dom__voku__html_wrapper____>The Hoosiers traveled to Pennsylvania to compete in the Lehigh Paul Short run Saturday. The No. 15 ranked men’s cross country team finished first overall in the college gold race. Five Indiana runners placed in top 30 for the men. The women’s team finished sixth overall but had a second place finish out senior Samantha Ginther. Junior Kelsey Duerksen finished in the top ten as well with a seventh place finish. The top runner for the men’s team was junior JR Ricker who finished the 8-kilometer race in tenth place with a time of 24 minutes and 12 seconds.Finishing second for the Hoosiers was senior Robby Nierman with a time of 14 minutes and 23 seconds giving him a 13th place overall finish. Coming in two seconds behind Nierman was his teammate, sophomore Rorey Hunter, who finished in 15th place overall. Freshman Carl Smith and junior Evan Esselink were the other two runners who finished in the top 30 for the Hoosiers. Smith crossed the line in 21st place and Esselink finished in 30th place. The men’s final score was 89 points. Three of the five teams that placed in front of the women’s team were ranked in the top 12. Georgetown, who finished first, is ranked No. 8. Villanova placed as the third overall team in the competition and are ranked No. 12 in the nation. Villanova placed above Cornell even though Cornell is ranked higher than them at No. 10. The men’s team defeated two other colleges who were ranked in the top 20. No. 20 ranked Georgetown placed third and No. 11 ranked Iona College fell to 39th place. Follow reporter Frank Bonner on Twitter @Frank_Bonner1.