SUU campus briefs

CROSS COUNTRY: The Thunderbirds will be back in action this weekend when they host the first of two home meets this season at the Cedar Ridge Golf Course. The course is slated to be the site of the 2009 Summit League Cross Country Championships, but the T-Birds will have a warm-up by hosting the Color Country Invitational this weekend.

SUU is scheduled to compete against Utah Valley University and Idaho State University, both teams the T-Birds are very familiar with. Southern Utah's men have already secured a victory over ISU earlier this year, but the SUU women were narrowly beaten in Pocatello during the opening meet of the season.

"Our teams have been performing very well as of late," Southern Utah head coach Eric Houle said. "We are a different team than the one that competed at Idaho State and have been recording new personal records each week.

It's hard to get upset of where we place at meets when kids are running the best they can."

The Thunderbirds' Cameron Levins and Sharla Manuele continue to lead the Summit League with the best men's and women's times on an 8K and 5K course, respectively.

The Color Country Invitational will also have a family flair to it as Houle's teams will be competing against those of his younger brother, Scott Houle, who's the head coach at Utah Valley.

The men's race is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. on Saturday, with the women's race starting at 9:45 a.m.

WOMEN'S SOCCER: The Thunderbirds had a 1-0 lead with a little more than ten minutes left, but a late shot by Western Illinois and a scoreless drought by both teams in the overtime periods resulted in a 1-1 draw on Thursday afternoon. The deadlock left Southern Utah with a 3-7-2 overall mark and 1-1-1 record in conference and the Fighting Leathernecks with a 3-5-2 and 0-1-1 mark in Summit League play. The T-Birds are now 4-0-1 all-time against Western Illinois in Cedar City.

"We gave away two points today," head coach Brian Stock said after the game.. The team was left with a point in the Summit League standings instead of three points for a win. "They really packed it in during the first half and that was something we didn't prepare for. However we played how we had to in order to score a goal."