After 20 days off between meets, cross country is ready for the at 5:05 p.m. Friday at the Bradley Classic in Peoria.

In NIU’s last meet on Sept. 28 the Huskies finished the Roy Griak Invitational as 27th of 28. During the long layoff, training and improving was the main focus for the Huskies and head coach Greg Hipp.

“We have been able to put some pretty challenging workouts in while having enough time to recover from them and not get over the red line too much,” Hipp said. “It has been positive in terms of building fitness and hopefully building confidence from those good workouts. The key thing is making sure we come in sharp and ready after such a long layoff.”

NIU may have to compete without team captain Jamie Burr, who has been bothered by a hip injury. Burr has had hip tightness and muscle problems on and off in her career.

Ali Olson, who has ran next to Burr throughout the season, feels Burr not competing will be a loss.

“She is definitely a great runner on our team,” Olson said. “It will be a little different without her if she is not able to compete, but it is for the best to have her ready for championship time. Hopefully she will be all right.”

This will be the last meet before the Huskies travel to the MAC championship on Nov. 7.

“I think the important thing for us is to have a good meet just to have confidence going into the conference championship,” Hipp said. “We have seen who we are in practice … just looking for a confidence booster.”

With Burr out, Hipp will look to see junior Meghan Heuer get back to her pre-season form and join Olson and Leah Raffety as the top performers on the NIU roster.

“She has started to look more like herself,” Hipp said. “If she can get more into the role that we were expecting of her in preseason that would be a really significant thing for the team.”

The Huskies competed in the Bradley Classic last season and finished 14th of 23 teams. The goal for Hipp is for his team to move up in the standings.

“Certainly in the least we want to improve upon that,” Hipp said. “But before I see the entire field of teams released I think being in the top 10 would be a good finish for us, and having our top five runners average between 22 minutes and 22:30 for 6K is very realistic for this course. Despite where our racing has been, we are capable of being that much better if we put it together.”