The cross-country team will compete in the Ohio Valley Conference championship Saturday in Nashville, Tenn., and plan to give the competition everything it has.
Coach Erin Howarth said that Eastern’s selected runners for the conference championship are mostly seniors, so this meet will be all or nothing.
“The team strategy is pretty simple, have fun, lay it all on the line and compete to the very end,” Howarth said. “We want to leave the course on Saturday and know that we gave everything we had to bring home the championship. If we can say that, then we have nothing to regret.”
The championship race will include 16 individuals from all 12 OVC teams, as each team is allowed to have eight men and eight women compete. Howarth said that despite this race being a conference meet, it is one of the smallest competitions the team will have participated in so far.
Howarth said Eastern Kentucky University will be a team to be mindful of in the race.
Eastern Kentucky has consistently been ranked highly in its egion; the women currently sit at fourth in the southeast region, and the men are ranked fifth.
In this season alone, the Eastern Kentucky men have been ranked as high as ninth in the country, Howarth said.
The Colonels were last year’s championship winners in both the men and women’s races. The win gave Eastern Kentucky its 10th straight conference championship win and their 24th win overall for the men and the fourth straight and 29th all-time win for the women.
Eastern Kentucky was voted to finish at the top of the conference by the OVC coaches in the preseason this year in both the men and women’s divisions.
Facing Eastern Kentucky is not laying heavily on senior Rachel Garippo’s mind, however.
Garippo said her focus for the meet will be on closing the gap between herself and three of the team’s top runners.
“I really want to close that gap from me to Ivy Handley, Maria Baldwin and Ruth Garippo,” Garippo said. “They race so well as a pack, and they need me up there, so my plan is to get up with them and stay with them.”
Garippo added she would like to be named an All-Conference athlete by placing within the top 14 individual runners, a goal she said can be achieved by giving this race her all.
The Panthers’ race day will begin with an early-morning “shake out” run to loosen up their muscles. They will then head to the course at Belmont and take a break before race time.
Howarth said that along with all of the training the team has endured this season, Eastern will place well if the Panthers perform at their highest abilities.
“Winning isn’t always about performing better than others, but performing to our highest abilities. If EIU performs to our highest abilities, we will win,” Howarth said.
The women’s five-kilometer race will begin at 9 a.m., and the men’s eight-kilometer competition is slated for 10 a.m.
Belmont will host the meet, a first for the school since joining the OVC in the 2012-2013 school year.

Kaitlin Cordes can be reached at 581-2812 or krcordes@eiu.edu