Last year, the Iowa State men’s cross country team was a young group preparing for its first NCAA National Championship berth. This year, the team heads into the National Championship looking for improvement in their second consecutive appearance.

The Cyclones struggled to a 13-place finish in the 31-team field last season. Kiel Uhl, then a junior, appeared in his second Championship race, but it was the first appearance in a race of such magnitude for any of the other ISU runners.

Even with the added experience, however, coach Corey Ihmels has yet to decide his final lineup for the Nov. 24 meet in Terra Haute, Ind.

“The lineup will be pretty similar to what we ran at Regionals,” Ihmels said. “I don’t foresee too many changes — maybe one or two — but we’re going to have to see how everybody’s health is doing at the end of the week.”

During the NCAA regional meet last weekend, Uhl was joined by sophomore Hillary Bor, junior Guor Marial and senior Kevin Born, who all ran in the National Championship last year. Marial, Bor and Born all finished within 20 seconds of each other last season, finishing 131, 153 and 163, respectively.

Uhl’s Championship race was marred by a fall early in the race, but he still managed to finish 71st in the 250-man field.

“For us to get into the top-10, top-15 range I think we really need Kiel Uhl, Hilary Bor and Guor Marial to have a good run up front,” Ihmels said. “Then we need two guys to step up in that four- or five-position and be in the top 75, top 100 finishers. If we do that, we’ll be in pretty good shape.”

The runners expected to fill out the rest of the seven-man roster are freshmen Yonas Mebrahtu, Rico Loy, and Joel Limo, who all participated in the regional meet. However, sophomore Clayton Carper and junior Zach McFall could also compete for the spots.

Ihmels is hoping for his team to move up from its 30th-place finish last year into somewhere in the top 10 or top 15. However, moving up from 30th can be a very tough feat, especially against the caliber of competition the Cyclones will be facing in the race.

“Obviously, we weren’t satisfied when we walked away from the course last year,” Ihmels said. “I think we’d like to be in the top 20, but if we could get into that top-10, top-15 range, that’d be great.

“I think we’ve got a chance to be in that range, but we’ve just got to get it done on the day.”

The team has been working toward qualifying for the meet all season, and doesn’t plan on changing preparations the week before the big meet.

“I think what we’ve done all year is try to improve on that finish from last year,” Ihmels said. “We’re just trying to get everybody in the right frame of mind and freshen everybody’s legs up and get ready to roll on Monday.

“If we do what we can end up in the top 10, but if any of our guys fail we’re going to struggle to hang on to the top 20.”

To be successful, Ihmels knows All-America candidate Uhl will have to lead the way, but everyone will have to run a good race to reach the team’s lofty goals.

“It needs to be a full, team effort, and obviously the two guys up front need to run the way they have all year long,” Ihmels said. “If we can get our fourth and fifth guys up in the top 100 I think we’ll be in pretty good shape.”