SAN ANTONIO -- With big expectations placed upon them for the 2026 season, University of the Incarnate Word men's and women's cross country coach Derek Riedel was hyper vigilant getting his athletes to stick with a strenuous off-season regimen.

Though not able to work with runners in person, he and his staff kept track of workouts with Strava, a fitness app used by distance athletes to monitor their progress during intense training sessions.

With the season on the cusp of starting, Riedel says nearly everyone on the squad was able to hit the goals laid out for them.

"I think everybody did the best summer of training that we've ever done," he said. " The men and women both, they put the mileage in, they put the workouts in, they hit the weights. They're coming in healthy, they're coming in motivated.

"We've got good leadership on both sides, we've got good experience on both sides and we've brought in some (new) difference-makers."

That group will try to back up their coach's claims as the Cardinals open the year with back-to-back home meets, starting on Tuesday.

MEN'S PREVIEW

To merely look at the results sheet, the 2026 Southland Conference Championships showed a disappointing finish for the UIW men.

After winning in 2022, then taking runner-up by a single point in 2023, the Cardinals dominated the 2024 SLC Championships, finishing 30 points ahead of runner-up Stephen F. Austin with a final score of 29.

But in 2025, UIW ended up in third place with 67 points, well behind winner SFA (20) and East Texas A&M (52) on the scoreboard. However, the day was actually far more successful that it appeared.

After finishing with a total time of 2:05:40 in 2024, the Cardinals cut more than seven minutes from that mark last season, running a 1:58:35, with the team average improving by well over a minute (25:08 to 23:43). 

The time was the fastest ever recorded by a Cardinal team in an 8K race, as they put six runners in the top-20.

That group was kept heavily in tact, as four of those top-20 runners return. Second-team All-SLC runner Anthony Zapata (10th place at the SLC Championships) is back, as are Kevin Hernandez (17th), Jared Laverty (18th) and Ethan Malesich (20th).

The Cardinals are also bringing in a top-20 finisher to replace the two they lost, as Jeremiah Garcia has transferred from East Texas A&M. Garcia was second-team all-conference with a 13th-place finish at last year's championships.

Knowing just how much better the SLC has gotten in a short period of time, Cardinal runners are eager to meet the challenge.

"We saw what the conference brought to us," said senior Ethan Malesich. "We knew we had to step up our game."

WOMEN'S PREVIEW

The Cardinal women made a jump up the leaderboard a season ago, finishing fourth at the SLC Championships after placing fifth the year before, cutting nearly a minute-and-a-half from their collective time (1:54:06 to 1:52.41).

Like the men, the women bring back the majority of last season's team, with six runners who took part in the Southland Championships set to return.

This group includes top-25 finishers Oceane Cercueil and Stoya Laydevant, who finished just one-tenth of a second apart at the race, Cercueil in 22nd, Laydevant in 23rd.

They also added a high-impact transfer from within the conference in Lizi McGuire, who placed 17th at the SLC Championships in 22:02.2 at Stephen F. Austin.

Believing this to be one of the deeper women's teams he's had at UIW, Reidel has goals to "get inside the top-two" at conference, a goal shared by his runners.

"We're shooting (for the) podium for sure," said junior Emily Shook. "With our team coming back stronger...less of our girls are injured. Now its like we have a chance to take a podium spot."

HEAVY HEARTS

UIW runners will have more on their mind than the competition this season, as they will spend the year honoring the memory of Sam Musgrave, a former Cardinal distance runner who tragically died in a car accident over the summer at just 19 years old.

"We all took that to heart and we trained hardcore this summer just for him," Malesich said.

The team will honor him in Tuesday's opener, at an annual event that has been renamed the Sam Musgrave UIW Twilight.

The race will be held at Classics Elite Soccer Complex. The women will begin at 8:45 p.m. with the men's starting shortly after.