After completing their seasons on top of the Ohio Valley Conference, factors like experience, focus and overall fitness will determine how Eastern’s men’s and women’s cross country teams will do at the NCAA Midwest Regional Championships.

Head coach Geoff Masanet is happy with the teams’ success and is aiming for the men to finish in the top 10 and the women to finish in the top 15.

“We hope to beat the teams that happen to be in our conference and the other state schools,” he said.

Southern Illinois is also looking forward to competition between the Illinois directional school, said SIU head coach Matt Sparks.

On Saturday, the Panthers and the Salukis will be among 31 teams from around the region to race on the University of Iowa’s Ashton Cross Country Course to qualify for the NCAA championships.

Among these teams are the top-five in the Midwest region, Iowa, Minnesota, Oklahoma State University, Kansas and Iowa State according to United States Cross Country Coaches Association.

Eastern has an advantage, having had experience on the course previous to this competition.

“A lot of other teams haven’t run it before,” Masanet said.

Ashton, which is a three-year old course, is described as having rolling hills and wide loops, a mildly difficult course, said University of Iowa’s head coach Larry Wieczorek. The course hosted the Big Ten Championships last year.

“It’s always helpful having a little knowledge about how to run it,” Wieczorek said. But it’s a simple course to follow for those who haven’t, he added.

For many, this will be the longest race of the entire season, 10,000 meters for the men and 6,000 meters for the women, so pacing is important, Wieczorek said.

The competition will be “an indicator of who’s fit and who’s not,” Sparks said.

After a full season, going into the colder months, runners can get sick or feel sore coming into the race.

“The biggest part is being healthy, and that’s one of the challenges,” said Bradley head coach David Beauchem.

“(University of Iowa is) not quite at 100 percent, but maybe nobody is at this time of the year,” Wioeczorek said.

Eastern’s men’s team clinched the OVC this year, even with last year’s top runner, junior Dave Carlson, coming off a season with mononucleosis and not running at 100 percent, according to Masanet.

The big question for Eastern’s women’s team, who finished second in the OVC this season, will be whether or not Mallory Fellers will compete in the race.

Masanet said the sophomore pulled a hamstring last week.

SIU has a few women who won’t be competing due to illness and injuries, according to Sparks, but he doesn’t see that hurting their chances to finish in the top 10, as both the men’s and women’s teams finished third in the Missouri Valley Conference this year.

Eastern’s success has come mostly in part to packing this season, but also, runners need to concentrate on their own race, Masanet said.

“Their focus has got to be on themselves,” he said. “(You) can’t get wrapped up in trying to beat this person, (or) you end up running someone else’s race.”

Sparks encourages runners to put themselves in the race and to get ahead early on.

The men’s race will begin at 11 a.m., followed by the women at 12:15 p.m. The top two teams will automatically qualify for the championships, and at-large teams will be announced the next day based on their seasonal records.

“I think we could have as many as five teams make it from our region,” Wieczorek said.