Nation's Best Works On Depth

Al Carius does not run a results-driven cross country program, and that's why it's OK the Cardinals didn't win the Aurora University Spartan Classic on Friday night at Oakhurst Forest Preserve.

Typically, one might think it's not OK for the No. 1 men's team in the nation to slip up in the second meet of the season. But when you're as advanced as the Cardinals, it's not slipping up; the second meet of the season is lumped into what Carius labels the preseason.

Imagine the Chicago Bears were so good, they could open the 2011 NFL regular season Sunday without their regular starters because the big picture — giving newer players valuable playing time — was more important than winning the game.

Hard to imagine, right? But that's how good the Cardinals are and, perhaps more so, that's how good they want to be in the long run.

Carius fielded a junior varsity team and a freshmen team in Friday's race. The JV finished second out of 15 teams, and the freshmen placed fourth. Only the first-place University of Chicago and third-place Wheaton College squads were better than Carius' second- and third-best, if you will.

"We actually are giving other people a chance to perform and evaluate where we're at. We're still in preseason," Carius said Friday afternoon, hours before putting his philosophy into action. He did not race his top 14 runners. "It gives us a chance to have other guys really get a first frontline experience."

Sophomore Mitch Gilbert of the JV Cardinals placed third overall in a time of 25: 52.1 on the 8K course. The Cardinals packed from there and grabbed the following places: seventh (sophomore Matt Havey), 13th (sophomore Luke Nally), 15th (junior Patrick Weisgerber), 16th (senior Michael Matuszak), 27th (senior Michael Matuszak) and 32nd (sophomore Ryan Thompsen) for a total of 54 points — 30 behind the winners.

According to Carius, the season really gets going at the Illinois Intercollegiate Invitational on Weibring Golf Course on Friday in Normal. The Cardinals probably will look a lot more like the nation's No. 1 team in the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association's No. 1  preseason top 35 coaches' poll for NCAA Division III.

And for those still curious about results, it's not as though the Cardinals don't have anything to point toward this season. They won the 16-team Elmhurst College Invitational on Sept. 2 and beat the same University of Chicago program that nipped them in Aurora.

The Cardinals' Tim Hird won the season-opening meet that humid day in 19:17.9 followed by teammates Dan Kerley (fourth), Kevin Sparks (seventh), John Crain (eighth), Ryan Root (11th), Matt Perez (12th) and Jordan Kremer (13th).

Once again, the goal for Carius was not winning the meet, even though they did. It was escaping without any heat- or humidity-related illness, as he's witnessed in the past, because of lost training time due to recovering and because of the potential for runners to be more susceptible to a recurrence.

"My concern prior to the meet was not so much the quality," Carius said. "In fact, I spent considerable time — I don't know if the right word's warning — cautioning our athletes about the temperature. I think it was 93 degrees on Friday and we had had really great workouts during the week and faced heat during the week.

"I tell people there's two things I really am fearful of and concerned with primarily with running and one is lightning — and thank God I've never seen anyone hit by lightning — but the other is heat, and I've seen numerous people through the years affected by heat. And I did not want to have any of our athletes affected by heat."