SEASON PREVIEW: North Central College Tops National Poll

The national runner-up men’s cross country team has been looking forward to some company and finally has it. Just don’t look anywhere near finish lines or national polls.

An offseason of 90-plus-miles-per-week individual practice runs finally has come to a close and been replaced by the always more friendly and desired team runs. And they reunite alone at the top of the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association’s preseason national Top 35 coaches' poll.

The accolades and offseason work will take shape Friday when the Cardinals open their season at the Elmhurst College Invitational in Eldridge Park — the first of many meets en route to the NCAA Division III National Championships.

“As good as second place is, we hate it,” Cardinals junior Neal Klein said. “Like, we got second place in the country and we’re disappointed with a second-place finish. In our heads we’re on top, and if we’re not on top we know we’re not doing our best.”

The perennial national-contending Cardinals finished second at November’s championships, a season finale that has been stuck in the back of the program’s mind. An individual poll of the runners isn’t needed to know that.

Klein (Streamwood High School) and sophomore Matt Perez (Hoffman Estates High School), the team’s two returning All-Americans, can safely speak on behalf of everyone when it comes to their perception of last year’s championships and the residue it left behind during the past nine months.

The Cardinals pinpointed what went wrong though — so the season’s starting not there, in that place, but with hunger and excitement, according to Perez.

“Everything we had control of we definitely took control of, like our team atmosphere and everything like that, we definitely worked on,” said Perez, reflecting on the national championships. “But the things like experience that we have, it’s not tangible, we couldn’t change. I think we did just about everything that we could have done.”

Experience is on their side this time around; five of last year’s team’s top seven runners returned, compared with only two in 2010. This year’s group has that big-meet experience, and there’s no doubt about it.

Haverford College (Pa.), fourth in this year’s preseason national poll, edged the Cardinals at nationals last year. It’s the Cardinals though, and their returning experience, that garnered them the top spot in the preseason poll based on seven of eight first-place votes — 12 points ahead of No. 2 Calvin College (Mich.).

The country will know more about where the Cardinals stand after the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh Brooks Invitational on Oct. 15. It’s considered pre-nationals, because it’s a little more than four weeks prior to the championships.

“The offseason’s always rough,” Perez said, “but the guys who want to be there at nationals will do what they have to do. We don’t really worry too much about the offseason, because we know our guys will do what they have to do to get ready for nationals in November.”