Cross country set for lone home meet

For the first time in three years, the No. 15 West Virginia cross country team will race without its all-American trio as the Mountaineers host the WVU Invitational Saturday.

"Losing three all-Americans is always tough," said WVU head coach Sean Cleary. "But we have younger girls ready to step in for those we have lost to graduation."

Cleary feels this is a "great" event for his team to open the season with and will be a good chance to evaluate the improvements his team has made in the last year.

"For many of these runners, there will be a direct correlation to last year's events," Cleary said. "We are running the same competition on the same course. Should the weather cooperate, we will be able to identify the level of improvement made within the last 12 months."

Not only is this a chance to evaluate the team's improvements, but Cleary said it is also an opportunity for his team to compete in front of family and friends.

With a majority of team's events scattered across the country, this will be a chance for the team to run with strong support from the crowd.

Cleary is looking forward to seeing how redshirt sophomores Aubrey Moskal, Hallie Portner and Jordan Hamric perform this weekend.

According to Cleary, these three have made an impression throughout preseason camp, early season workouts and have showed a lot of promise for the 2010 campaign.

Not only is this the first time since 2007 that WVU will race without its all-Americans, but this is also the first time the Mountaineers have not started the season in the top 10 in the three-year period.

"This is a new era in WVU women's cross country," Cleary said. "We have not been outside the top 10 in NCAA cross country since 2007, so we are very excited to see where this team ends up."

Though Cleary admits it will be no nominal task to duplicate the program's recent success, he feels that it is attainable and a goal for the team this year.

As for success this weekend, Cleary is taking a different approach to the event. He will not measure the Mountaineers' success on a score but will judge their performance on improvements from 2009.

"Our success will be evaluated on the type of improvement we have made, not the team scores," he said.