DELAND, Fla. – The final preparation for the ASUN Conference Championship is upon both the men's and women's cross-country teams in the form of University of South Florida Cross Country Invitational Friday at the CLAW on USF's campus.
 
"This meet is on the schedule to serve a couple different reasons," head coach Bryan Harmon said "We're a couple weeks out from conference [championship], anybody who's been battling sickness or injury in the previous weeks has one last chance to go out there and get themselves on the right path. We do have a couple people that are getting themselves back. On the flip side, this is also a tune up and to give us a chance to look at our team to see if we even need some people to race, so we could rest a few. I think we're primed and ready to go as it's getting down to crunch time."
 
A change already made but happening this weekend was the swapping of the time slots. The longer 8K run for the men will now take place later in the evening, a decision made by race officials over last weekend.
 
Last time out the women's team competed in the Paul Short Run at Lehigh University. In their race, Stetson placed ninth of 46 teams, and while Coach Harmon was happy with a top 10 finish, he indicated he believed the team could have competed better. With the performance, he approved of the team's progression as the moment builds for the ASUN championship and peak form.
 
The men competed last week at the FSU invite after a four-week gap between competition. The indication was there was room for improvement but the mistakes made were coachable and fixable according to Harmon. The few negatives were overshadowed by an outstanding performance by freshmen Luke Danison and and Collin Brooks who etched their names into the freshman records both with top 10 all-time Stetson finishes in the 8K. Danison now holds fifth place all-time among Stetson freshman in the race-specific category, Brooks made his mark at eighth all-time.
 
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