This weekend, Eastern’s cross country team will compete in the Saluki Invitational in Carbondale.

Though the Salukis and Southeast Missouri will run a full squad for this meet, it will be a meet for Eastern to give opportunities to those who hadn’t ran or deserved another race, according to head coach Geoff Masanet.

Masanet said team is build toward the Memphis Twilight Invitational on Oct. 6.

“Last week, neither (SIU or SEMO) ran their full line-up so I expect to get a better look at their teams this weekend which will help our preparation for competing against SEMO at conference and both teams when we face them at the NCAA Regional meet,” he said.

Eastern will run a full squad this week and could use that to their advantage in terms of scouting as SIU is running three out of their top four runners.

“On the men’s side, we held out three of our top four runners and those men will be competing this weekend,” SIU head coach Matt Parks said. “They had a difficult week at practice and we just needed to keep them healthy.”

The Salukis are led by Mohamed Mohamed, the 2006 Missouri Valley Conference Cross Country Champion and Jeff Schirmer, the MVC champion in the 10,000-meter race last spring in outdoor track.

“Mohamed is more of the soft spoken,” Parks said. “[He is a] lead-by-example athlete. [Very] few people train as focused as Mohamed. Jeff is the confidence behind our team and voice behind our team’s successes.”

Parks said Eastern’s men’s team is young and filled with runners who were successful at the high school level including Ryan Hoklas and Derek Ericson.

He also said there were good individual battles with sophomore Erin O’Grady and junior Katie O’Brien.

Masanet agreed Eastern’s team is young and there is a team approach to racing.

“We preach a team approach to racing and will have some of our (team) hold back a bit during the early parts of the race to help their teammates who are a bit behind them, in order to keep our pack together as long as possible,” Masanet said. “Last weekend, with the exception of our number one runner Brad Butler, we packed six guys within 19 seconds of each other. If we can keep moving our pack up and running faster while also keeping together, we will do well.”

Eastern’s women’s team has ties with Southern’s team, as some girls have previously ran against Southern’s runners in high school.

“I’m not sure about some of the other girls, but (two of the girls and I) of the girls ran against one of the girls from SIU,” Katie O’Brien said. “She beat me at a couple meets my senior year (in high school). She (also) beat me at our home meet last weekend.”