The men’s and women’s cross-country teams will compete at the Bradley Classic in Peoria, Ill., today. Some OVC schools attending the Bradley Classic include Eastern Illinois, Southeast Missouri State and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. This will be the first match of the season the Racers will face SEMO.

Head Coach Jenny Severns said that seeing SEMO race for the first time will provide an opportunity for the Racers to gauge where they stand in the conference.

“It will be good to see Southeast Missouri and see where we are at,” Severns said. “Other than that, there are just some good Missouri Valley schools it’s always good to compete against and just some people we don’t compete against very often.”

The Racers have worked hard to prepare for the upcoming Bradley Classic.  Some of the workouts the men have done to prepare for the meet is a 4×300 meter at a two-mile tempo and the  women done a 4×300 one-mile tempo run which are challenging workouts, according to Severns.

“I think we get better every day,” Severns said. “They have been working hard and they are definitely ready to run fast for sure.”

Severns explained that her players are all doing a good job, but the biggest thing will be to continue to work together as a team and really pull each other along.

“Our strength right now is that we pack run, and we really keep everybody together,” Severns said. “So where someone might have one person out front and a straggler behind, we just have big group, so it will be moving that group forward to where they are all moving together.”

The goals for this upcoming meet that Severns has set for her team are simply to never stop improving and moving forward. She said that in every meet both the men’s and women’s teams have competed in, they have made progress.

“I think that with every meet they have taken a step forward and they have proven to themselves that they are fit and are ready to run fast and compete,” Severns said. “I think that is just what we need to do this weekend is just go in and compete because I know they are ready. It is just a matter of them believing they are ready.”

Story by Heath Ringstaff, Contributing writer