Coach Mangus expects this to be the best Cross-Country Season in the history of SSU Cross Country. This has been an outstanding recruiting year, which will result in a number of new recruits challenging returning lettermen and earning spots in the top seven positions on both teams.  

The nine meet schedule has old and returning challenges.  New meets will be the Winthrop College Invitational in Rock Hill, South Carolina and the Pikeville College Invitational in Pikeville, Kentucky. The very tough "Legends" race will host it's 25th anniversary edition on Lake Erie in October.  This will be a very challenging schedule.   I expect us to improve from our 7th place (women) and 8th place (men) finishes in the American Mideast Conference. It will be tough, but a couple of runners have a chance to qualify for the NAIA national meet.

The men's team will only have two letterman returning; junior Matt Montavon and senior Todd Vatter.  An outstanding recruiting class of twelve new runners will enable the Bears to greatly improve on last season's 19-37 record.  New upperclassmen include transfer junior Dave Lykins, sophomore David Abbott,  junior Brett Simpson, and sophomore Levi Odell.  The new freshman are Nathan Burchett, Billy Sember, Matt Fin, Eric Stephan, Adam Tolle, Mark Willett, and John Williams. 

Lykins and Abbott bring a great deal of college cross-country experience to the young team.  The new members bring a lot of winning experiences in cross-country and track to the program. This will be a much-improved team with outstanding potential. The top seven spots are wide open and some interesting challenges will develop for the top spots. The men also open at the Kentucky Christian Invitational where they are the defending champions. Course records should fall at that meet and SSU should defend its championship.