ISU athlete prepares for cross country championship

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTHI) - Final preparations are being made for Monday's NCAA Cross Country National Championships.

Indiana State's Scott Keeney is just the second Syacmore to qualify for nationals in the last three years. Justin Kunz qualified in 2006.

Keeney finished 13th at the Great Lakes Regional, and he hopes he can carry that over to next week.

"I'm excited right now, I'm not nervous yet, but I'm sure I will be the day before and the day of. But I'm excited that a lot of my friends and a lot of people from Indiana State are going to come watch the meet so there will definitely be a lot of people there cheering me on," Keeney, a junior at Indiana State, said.

"I think we saw the results at the conference and region meet and I don't have any reason to doubt that he's ready to put together a good race on Monday," Indiana State head coach John McNichols.

Having the National Championships in your own backyard is something Keeney hopes he can use to his advantage. Just knowing the course could give him an edge.

"You can make up a couple seconds in a race and in a championship race that can mean five or ten places," McNichols said. "Some guys might be surprised when they go up one of the hills and say that was a little tougher than I thought, Scott's not gonna be suprised, he's gonna know every aspect of it."

Monday's race is easily the biggest in Keeney's young career, yet he still understands his role as a student-athlete.

"Monday morning I'm actually going to go to one of my classes at nine, kind of stay in a routine and get up at the same time, then after that I'll prolly head out to the course and do an easy run before and ill be ready to go, business as usual," Keeney said.

The race begins at noon on Monday at the Lavern Gibson Course in Terre Haute.