Hoosiers running for victories

There are two ways a team can qualify for the NCAA Cross Country Championships held in Terre Haute in late November. The first is to finish among the top two teams at the NCAA Great Lakes District meet. The other is to amass enough wins over quality teams to receive an at-large bid. \nIU's first chance at gathering wins came at the Notre Dame Invitational two weeks ago, where they secured a win over the University of Florida, a virtual lock for an automatic bid out of the South Region. IU's next chance is tomorrow at the Pre-NCAA meet, held in Terre Haute as an opportunity for teams to take a trial run on the NCAA course. \n"We have a shot at getting some good wins," said junior All-American John Jefferson. "We're in Georgetown (University's) race, and that would be a good win to get. Plus, (the University of) Colorado is good, but they're young so we have a shot at them, too."\nA team earns an at-large bid when it beats enough teams that end up qualifying for NCAA's automatically at its Regional meets. Typically a large number of the at-large bids come out of the Great Lakes region. \nIU lost its top finisher in last year's meet to graduation. Luckily, other runners have begun picking up the slack and closing the gap, such as current front-runner junior Sean Jefferson, who finished seventh at Notre Dame two weeks ago, 10 seconds behind the race winner. \n"We need to get another couple of guys up front," the All-American said. "Once they're ready our team will be totally different."\nThis is a risk teams take in planning to peak on one single day in November; occasionally the team struggles to put together the finishes it needs in the early part of the year. However, recent workouts have seen the emergence of potential teammates set to join him up front. \nJohn Jefferson improves with each successive week in his continuing recovery from an entire year off due to injury. Junior Stephen Haas has spent the past two weeks running stride for stride with Sean Jefferson in workouts and needs only to put together a solid race. Senior Tom Burns is gaining confidence with each race, and junior Eric Redman, crucial to IU's core, is finally coming down from high mileage. Also, junior Charlie Koeppen has made significant improvements since recovering from illness and nagging injury. \n"Charlie's way further along than he was last year," assistant coach Matt Moody said. "He usually comes on strong at the end of the year. This year doesn't look any different."\nWith a proven strong front-runner and a surging supporting cast finding their legs as they adjust to training, IU seems on track to challenge last year's success, which culminated in a 12th-place team finish at the NCAAs. Pre-NCAAs is another step on the staircase to a podium finish -- the ultimate goal of IU's program. \n-- Contact staff writer Rob DeWitte at rdewitte@indiana.edu.