The men's cross country team has already begun to show improvement from last year. We have five new runners on the team that are going to help get us to nationals. With the addition of seniors Kenny Alexander, Ricky Martell and Joe Pittenger and our three little freshmen Mark Rednour, Jacob Pessia, and Anthony Lee, our team is looking pretty strong. We have a total of 11 men on the team this year which makes us that much stronger. Some of the returning runners this year are senior Dustin Wine, junior David Clark, and Nate Winters and I from the sophomore class. We have all been working hard this summer in preparation for the season.

Mark Porostosky, our captain, is a senior as well this year.  He ended his season last year by making it to the NAIA championships by himself.  He is a great leader and runner and I cannot wait to see how he finishes his college career in running.  This year however, we are planning on making it as a team.

Team camp this year was a little different because of Coach Wilson teaching. We would be on our own in the morning while Coach was teaching. We were able to hang out after the morning run, which is always a great way to bond with the rest of the team. In the afternoon, we would have another practice which was shorter and harder than that morning. The evening was the most important part of our team camp. We would have dinner and hang out, but then we would have "Team Time". This is when our coach would just sit us all down and let us think about different things in our lives personally, spiritually and as a team. It was a great experience because we all got to think a little of why we were here running and competing in a college sport.

As you can see in the picture, everyone is working very hard to get ready for the season. This is what usually went on during the day because a runner is ready to run whenever. We like to call this a stretch to our workout, but in order to fully benefit from this stretch you have to continue it for multiple hours. As you can see, six of us were doing quite well at the stretch. (Actually, the picture was taken after our morning practice of 9-10 miles.)

I am happy to say that we all have NAIA nationals in our minds and we are going to strive to get there in November injury-free!