The Youngstown State men's and women's cross country teams head to the 2012 Horizon League Cross Country this Saturday at the Wayne E. Dannehl National Cross Country Course in Kenosha, Wis.
The men's 8k and women's 5k are scheduled to start at Noon Eastern time.
The YSU women placed second last year while the men will be looking to improve on their seventh-place performance. YSU's top finisher last year for the women was Samantha Hamilton. Hamilton placed third overall but is redshirting this year and will return to the lineup in 2013.
Leading the women this year are Monica Ciarnello and Anna Pompeo. Pompeo finished fifth at the 2011 Horizon League Championships, but has been battling injuries which forced her to miss the Pre-Nationals meet earlier this month. It will be a race-day decision on Saturday if she competes or not.
Pompeo was YSU's top finisher at the first two meets of the year. She placed sixth at the Duquesne Duals and dropped her time by 13 seconds in a second-place performance at the Tommy Evans Invitational hosted by Akron. She ran an even faster time at Notre Dame finishing at 18:19 in the 5k race.
In her absence, Ciarnello has taken the top spot in the lineup. At the Pre-Nationals, she posted a time of 22:32.6 in the 6k format. Her 5k times have improved dramatically this season falling from 18:54 to open the campaign to 18:16 the last time she competed in a 5k at the Notre Dame Invitational.
Brittany Stockmaster, Katie Heney and Nelly Yegon have consistently been among the top five finishers for YSU throughout the year.
Stockmaster was 19th at Duquesne, 14th at Tommy Evans, 41st at Notre Dame and 78th at the NCAA Pre-Nationals meet. Her times have improved by over one minute since early September to now. Heney has also improved throughout the campaign seeing her time drop from 20:06 at Duquesne to 18:38 at Notre Dame. Yegon has cut her 5k time by nearly 45 seconds.
For the men, a bunch of new faces will get their first crack at the league meet. On Nick Gliha and Ryan Pavlicko have Championship meet experience. Gliha was 31st last year with a time of 28:10.6 while Pavlicko was 83rd.
Newcomers for YSU who will be counted on to make an impact are Kyle Joynes, John Hutnyan, Vince Corn and Ryan Sowards.
Gliha has been the top placer in all four meets this year. He was 14th at Duquesne, 15th at Akron, 28th at Notre Dame and 109th at the NCAA Pre-Nationals. Joynes and Hutnyan have battled back and forth between the two and three spots while Dugan has been a steady four.
The defending champion on both sides, Butler, is no longer a member of the Horizon League. On the men's side the Bulldogs had won 14 consecutive titles while on the women's side, they had won nine of the last 10 titles. So this year's championships will be wide open.
