The Eastern men and women’s cross country teams are looking to continue to compete at the highest level this season, and repeat the success both sides had last season.

The men’s team and women’s team ended their season on a variety of high notes. Both teams earned team academic honors with cumulative team GPA’s of 3.00. The men had GPA of 3.05 and women had a 3.22.

The team has been running together for a few weeks and are preparing for the first meet this season which will be on their home turf. Both the men’s and women’s team swept the opening home meet last season, with now graduated runners Tyler Yunk and Ruth Garippo leading the sides in 2016, so there will be a new pair of first place runners in the meet.

Both teams found themselves ranked in the upperhalf of the Midwest Region in 2016. The men, who finished in 15th place in 2016 season and the women, 20th place, will both look to build upon a good 2016 season that had a few wins and many injuries. The rebuilt team has promising new runners that will try to put Eastern on top.

The team is restocking both sides with 12 total fresh faces and new talent. For the men they have three new freshman runners. For the women, there are nine new runners.

The men’s team will hope to find promising new runners to fill the spaces left by trio of Eastern cross country graduates, Tyler Yunk, Riley McInerney, and Paxson Menard; who all graduated in 2016.

The women’s team enters this season with a leader on their roster in Maria Baldwin who will be the veteran voice the women’s team needs. With a new youth movement, the team looks to the future for a possible conference championship.

The first race of the season is a week away and a team of new faces will take the field and compete against some of Eastern’s conference foes, as well as teams across the Midwest.

The season opening meet will be at Eastern at the Wat Crawford Open located at the Tom Woodall Panther trail. The competition will start at 4:45 PM for the women and 5:30 pm for the men on Friday, Sep 1.

Alex Hartman can be reached at 581-2812 or aihartman@eiu.edu