The men’s and women’s cross country teams will welcome nine opponents Friday to its lone home meet of the season, the Eastern Illinois Open.

After canceling last weekend’s meet at Ilinois State to continue training, Eastern will enter the heart of the season Friday.

“We’re finishing off a tough two and a half week training program,” head coach John McInerney said.

“We’re going to start making statements down the road and deciding who will run in our pre-national meet. This weekend and next we’re going to start getting more focused and expect the levels to rise.”

Eastern will step up to the starting line with Arkansas State University, Western Illinois University, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Danville Area Community College, Wren Lake Community College and Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville.

“On the men’s side, I’d expect we’re the heavy favorites with a few question marks,” McInerney said.

“Arkansas and Western have good women’s teams, but between some team races and individual races, everyone should be pushed real well.

“We’re focusing on leading the way on our home course on both sides.”

With two weeks of training behind them, the men are coming off 80-90 mile weeks while the women were running between 60 and 70 miles.

“We got in a lot of quality and solid workouts,” senior Kyle O’Brien said.

“We need to have faith in the training we’ve had.”

Training has been especially important for O’Brien and teammate Jason Bialka, who have been Eastern’s front runners in recent meets. O’Brien, who has returned to cross country this season after redshirting last year, has provided Bialka with competition both at practice and during the race.

“I think it’s been a blessing,” O’Brien said of racing with Bialka. “We’ve talked about it and it’s a huge mental advantage knowing when I step up to the line that the guy I run with every day is my main competitor. I think the guys realize that too – you need to run with someone.”

While Bialka and O’Brien have been able to stick together during the race, the main goal for the men’s team, as well as the women’s team, will be closing the ever-present gap between the front runners and the rest of the scoring pack.

“We need to close the gaps on Kyle and Jason between our top five and top seven,” McInerney said. “At Bradley, the gap between Beth and Stephanie (Bone) was over a minute, so we’re looking at similar things from both groups. We need to be closing our gaps and getting all the troops together.”

With two meets in the past, this mid-season is a key opportunity to crunch the team together for a better scoring opportunity.

“In practices we’re all right there together,” Martin said. “I’m extremely confident that five or six girls can be up there with me. Stephanie is still young and getting back into it, but I’m confident the other girls will be up there by the end of the season.”

Friday will not only have the extra motivation of racing on the home course for Eastern, but for the seniors, it will be their last collegiate race on the Panther Trail.

“It didn’t even hit me until last night,” Martin said. “I was sitting there with Lauren (Rapacki) and she said, `This is the last time we’ll be running on the course.’ And then tears came to our eyes. For the two of us, it’s a big thing for us this weekend.

“This is the start of the real season too, and we need to race as a team.”