IUXC Confident Heading Into Big Tens

By: Sam Beishuizen | Twitter
IUHoosiers.com

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - All the training, that's already over. The long runs, the work in the weight room and the sweat equity put in from July to October is in the rearview. There's no way Indiana's runners can get much better than they are now.

All that's left to do is race.

The Indiana men's and women's cross country teams will compete at the 2015 Big Ten Championships on Sunday at the Sydney Marovitz Golf Course in Chicago. The first race will begin at 11:45 a.m. ET. There shouldn't be any surprises, head coach Ron Helmer said. It's time for his runners to prove themselves.

"Relaxation and composure are actually driven by confidence," Helmer said. "They just need to remind themselves of all the positive things that are in place, the good work that they've done, and realize it's very much in their hands when the gun goes off."

The Hoosiers have reason to be confident, considering their recent results.

Indiana split up two weekends ago between the Adidas Invitational and the Pre-National meet as a final tune-up before postseason races begin. At the Adidas Invitational, one of the premier meets of the year and comparable to the NCAA Championships, the men finished 16th out of 36 teams, while the women finished 22nd.

The competition at the Adidas Invitational gave Indiana an idea for where it stood nationally, Helmer said. The men's race had 15 nationally-ranked teams, including No. 11 Wisconsin and No. 4 Stanford, both of which the men beat.

Similarly, the women's field included 20 nationally-ranked teams. The Hoosiers knocked off a pair of them in No. 14 Wisconsin and No. 20 West Virginia.

Helmer wasn't particularly pleased with the way either of his teams ran that day, which gives Indiana reason to be confident heading into the Big Ten meet. The problems the Hoosiers had at the Adidas Invitational are correctable, Helmer said. It's just a question of whether or not they'll be able to fix them in the two weeks since.

"We're in a really competitive conference, and if you can do well at the Big Ten's, you know it's a big deal," redshirt junior Amanda Behnke said. "Every place matters in this type of meet. Every second you're slower could be points, and every point matters in this type of meet."

The women's team has been a little too inconsistent for Helmer's liking, but that's more a reflection on the team's youth. Indiana regularly relies on a group of younger athletes to score points in the critical third, fourth and fifth spots that make all the difference in a meet like the Big Ten Championships.

"There are things we can still fix to get better," Behnke said. "It's not like we've done all we can do. We definitely still have room to grow, and that's exciting."

Contrarily, the men's team enters the Big Ten meet with experience, including three runners who scored for the Big Ten Championship team two years ago.

The Hoosier men have floated in and out of the national rankings all season. The most recent NCAA Poll placed Indiana at No. 28, fourth among Big Ten teams. Coincidentally, IU was in a nearly identical spot two years ago heading into its Big Ten title.

"We don't expect to go in there and just win, but we know we're definitely capable of doing that," redshirt junior Jason Crist said. "That hasn't been the talk around the team necessarily, but we all know what we can do."

Crist said there's a certain confidence around the men's team at practice. They don't think they've reached their full potential quite yet, Crist said, and training has been both relaxed and competitive.

"I think everyone's excited to finally race," Crist said. "We're been really focused on getting business done every day and keeping workouts comfortable…I think we can all come together and do really well."

Regardless of how strong either team feels, there's a certain element of uncertainty at a race like the Big Ten meet, Helmer said. Every team trains differently. Some peak early. Others late.

It's impossible to predict how strong the competition will be. He's also still not quite sure how well his own runners will run, though he said he has a pretty good idea that both sides could be strong.

Only the race will tell.

"I have great confidence in their intent. I have great confidence in their preparation," Helmer said. "When ordinary athletes—and in the big picture, I would categories most of them as having come to us as ordinary athletes—when ordinary athletes prepare to do extraordinary things, that's exciting.

"I don't know that we're particularly confident that everybody's going to be extraordinary. There's certainly the potential for a bunch of them to do extraordinary things."

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Players Mentioned

Amanda Behnke

Jason Crist