SE Illinois News

Josh Maier will be looking to make the finish of his 2016 season as good as the beginning.

Maier, a sophomore cross-country runner for Southern Illinois, won his first two races and finished sixth at another in an auspicious first few weeks of the new season.

The high-finish deluge started with the EIU Walt Crawford Open on Sept. 2 in Charleston, Illinois, with Maier beating the field of 92 runners across the finish line in a time of 24 minutes, 56.59 seconds, according to siusalukis.com. Then, on Sept. 9, at the Forest Park Festival in St. Louis, Maier won the 6K race in 18:52 out of a field of 17 runners.

At the Notre Dame Invitational on Sept. 30 in South Bend, Maier claimed sixth place out of 183 runners with a time of 24:41.3. Maier finished first among Missouri Valley Conference runners in the meet.

His time at South Bend was the sixth-best time this season among men's cross-country runners in the MVC, according to mvcstats.org.

Reed Fischer of Drake has the top men's time in the MVC, at 23:53.25.

First-year SIU head coach Kevin Cataldo told Southeast Illinois News that Maier, a native of Alsip, Illinois, had been developing well and was starting to come into his own. Consistency is a big strength of Maier's approach to competing, Cataldo said.

“He does all the things that put himself in a good position to succeed, whether it's doing running 90 miles a week, stretching, doing the strengthening programs that we have,” Cataldo said. “He's not afraid to come into the office and talk training, and he just really listens.”

Being still somewhat new to the program, Cataldo said he's still getting to know Maier, but said Maier leads by example.

“He does the right things,” Cataldo said. “He's positive. I think he's a good role model for the younger athletes to look up to.”

And Maier is getting stronger. Cataldo said Maier has increased his long run in workouts by more than a mile.

“I think it's given him some confidence in his strength, so we're definitely seeing that starting to shine,” Cataldo said.

Last season, according to siusalukis.com, Maier had two top-10 finishes, including a sixth-place showing in the EIU Panther Classic and eighth place at the Forest Park Classic. Maier was 27th at the MVC Championships and came in 79th at the NCAA Midwest Regional Meet.

Cataldo said he'd like to have Maier work on foot speed as an additional weapon in his racing arsenal.

“He'll have to rely on his strength, but it'd be great to, you know, have a second thing in their back pocket as a little bit of foot speed at the end of the race as well,” Cataldo said.

The NCAA Midwest Regional will be held Nov. 11 in Iowa City, with the NCAA Championships set for Nov. 19 in Terre Haute, Indiana.