The men’s cross country team will head to Eastern Kentucky for Saturday’s Ohio Valley Conference championship race, where the Panthers will attempt to defend the title they claimed at home last year.

Eastern Kentucky and Eastern have had a long history of championship titles dating back to 1996 when the Panthers joined the OVC and claimed the title. Since then Eastern has taken titles in 1998 and 2000 with the Colonels winning the conference in 1997 and 1999.

If the alternating pattern continues, Eastern Kentucky would be crowned champs this year.

“We’re hoping to break that string,” head coach John McInerney said. “Eastern Kentucky has improved nicely and now they’re on their home course.

“We’ve been stressing how we dominated last year and how easy it seemed, but it wasn’t easy. There was a battle before it got easy, and we need to win that battle again.”

Senior Jason Bialka will be among the leaders of the conference battle, looking to defend his title from last season. Challenging him will be his own teammate, Kyle O’Brien, who has ran along side Bialka this season. Around the conference, Paul Gilvin, a fifth-year senior from Morehead State, and Eastern Kentucky’s Alan Horton will be fighting to cross the finish line first.

“Hopefully (Jason’s) main competition will be a teammate,” McInerney said. “Kyle’s been nursing an injury, but he’s responded well to treatment.

“Paul Gilvin is a pretty solid runner and he’ll challenge up front. Alan Horton broke up our group of eight in the top nine last year and he has two new teammates this year, so there will be a nice group of three who will challenge.”

The question for Eastern will be whether they challenge Bialka in the front of the pack, or attempt to put holes in the pack with Panther runners scoring in third, fourth and fifth.

The advantage Eastern Kentucky has over the Panthers is their knowledge of the home course, but with Eastern traveling down to the course Friday, the team will have plenty of opportunities to walk the course and learn its twists and turns.

“The first strategy is to learn the course the best we can Friday,” McInerney said. “We can do OK that way. This course isn’t too bad. Our team strategy is pretty simple: go out in a big pack and dictate and dominate some of the other teams.”

The longer the team can hold together as a pack, the better outcome the Panthers will have in the end.

“There are five Eastern Kentucky guys who think they can knock us off,” McInerney said. “We’re not running as well as a team. We need to win the OVC crown and run our own team the best we can to springboard into regionals.

“We need for ourselves to have seven or eight guys who lay it on the line to get us mentally prepared to qualify for nationals.”