No. 15 team heads to Nationals

Today the No. 15 men's cross country team heads to Terre Haute to take on the best in the nation at the NCAA Championships. The team earned an at-large bid to the meet after a fourth place finish at the Great Lakes Regional in West Lafayette last weekend.\nCoach Robert Chapman said the team should be around 15th place if they run similar to their race at Regionals, but the team hopes to finish in the top 10. The team race is so deep that if they do not have a great race, they could fall back to around 20th, he said.\nThe team will use this meet largely for experience purposes. After today, the team will have 10 runners who have run in the NCAA Championships. Four of the team's top seven this year are freshmen. Also the team will return seniors Chad Andrews and Chris Powers, who redshirted, next season. Both seniors have All-American potential. This meet will give the team a solid foundation to build on.\n"I know we have the talent and work ethic to be elite," freshman John Jefferson said. "It was just going to be a matter of time before that talent came out. Now we are running on all cylinders."\nChapman said the team's training was oriented toward the later part of the season. He said they cruised through some of the earlier meets with their focus on Regionals and the NCAA Championships. Last season the team tired toward the end of the season, but this year they still feel fresh.\n"None of our guys are even close to burned out," Chapman said. "Most of the teams will take a week or two off after the season is over but our guys will probably take Tuesday off and run Wednesday."\nLeading the Hoosiers will be freshmen John and Sean Jefferson. Both have earned All Big Ten honors and both have been Big Ten Runner of the Week. John Jefferson was named Big Ten Freshman of the Year. Today they could add All-American status to their résumé. \nJunior Bart Phariss, sophomore Tom Burns and freshman Eric Redman have also been a part of the top five for the Hoosiers. Phariss ran at the NCAA Championships in 2000 where he placed 205th. The team placed 17th in that meet.\nJunior Nathan Purcell and freshman Stephen Haas will also race for the team. Purcell ran in the 2000 meet and placed 163rd.\nThe team has run twice at Terre Haute this season, and their experience on the course could help.\n"I think knowing the course will give me a bit of an advantage over the other guys who have never run there before," Sean Jefferson said.\nThe ten kilometer race begins at 1:15 p.m. and is at the Vern Gibson Championship Course.