Men's Cross Country Set to Begin Season
9/8/2005 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country
Without Des Roches, the Golden Eagles Look to Contend in 2005
Youth and lack of depth will pose challenges for the men?s cross country team as it faces the daunting task of entering the prominent BIG EAST conference after a tough end to the 2004 season. Marquette opens its regular season on Friday, September 9 at the Bradley Invitational.
The Golden Eagles want to contend with the best the conference has to offer. The goals of the team aren?t necessarily an NCAA Championship appearance this season. Eventually they will get their shot at an NCAA Championship, but this year's squad is focusing on placing high enough at the conference championships to prove that last season?s sixth place finish at the Conference USA Championships, one year removed from winning the conference title, was a fluke.
?The big thing for us this season is being able to rebound after the sub par season last year,? said head coach Dave Uhrich. ?After winning the conference title and finishing sixth in 2004, we were very disappointed. We want to prove it was a fluke.?
If the Golden Eagles can finish higher than sixth place at the BIG EAST Championships, the season will be deemed a success. Only time will tell as Marquette embarks on the BIG EAST Conference championships on Friday, Oct. 28.
However, the Golden Eagles will be without the services of their strongest runner Brent DesRoches who in 2004 was their top finisher in each meet last season including a third-place finish at the C-USA Championships.
DesRoches will be back for the upcoming indoor track season but will take a redshirt for the 2005 cross country season due to a co-op academic opportunity. Without DesRoches, Jeremy Williams and David Henderson will captain the 2005 squad and will look to make big strides against their new opponents. Returnees Josh Pinter, Kyle Saginus, Andrew Lelinski and Tommy Schmitz all return and should contribute weekly for Marquette.
The Golden Eagles will have their work cutout for them at the conference championships racing teams such as Providence who placed second at the BIG EAST Championships and 21st at the NCAA Championships and Notre Dame who won the BIG EAST title last season before finishing 11th at the national meet.
?We are in a much tougher conference now,? said Uhrich. ?It will be a challenge for us, but ultimately our goal is to place higher in the BIG EAST this year than we placed in Conference USA last season.?
Another focus is not to replace DesRoches this season, but rather get by this season with out him. That included bringing in seven newcomers to the team in 2005. Joining the men this season are three of them being local products from Wisconsin and one from Illinois, but also Iowa, Montana and California are represented on the Marquette roster and all have a chance to be among the top-seven runners almost immediately. Uhrich hopes that his plethora of newcomers will aid in the pursuit of a better finish and help the team?s depth for the next few years.
?We don?t have the depth the women have,? said Uhrich. ?I feel there are four athletes right now that can certainly be in our top seven. We will be looking for the younger guys to fill in the gaps. We want to have a good season and continue to build on it for the next season when we have Brent back.?
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