Men's cross country team opens season Friday at Florida Southern

The Eastern Florida State College men's cross country team will open the regular season Friday morning at the Holloway Collegiate XC Opener in Lakeland.

The meet will be at Holloway Park hosted by Florida Southern University and will host teams like University of Tampa, Lake Sumter, NovaSoutheastern, St. Leo, Barry and others. The men's race will begin at 8:15 a.m.

"Holloway Park is strictly a cross country course, it is not extremely fast and you start up hill. It is a true cross country course through the woods, almost all grass and it is wide. Time wise it is a little slower, but it will be a good first test," Eastern Florida State College men's cross country head coach Doug Butler said.

Adam Bouldjadj joins the Titans and will lead a talented group of runners that begin the season ranked 14^th in the NJCAA Division I preseason poll by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.

"Training has been awesome, we have been working hard. We have a solid team, I am completely new to the team and it has been a good experience. I have noticed a big progress with this team and can't wait to get started," Bouldjaj said.

The team has nine freshmen this season and will be making their collegiate debut on Friday.

"This is probably the deepest group I have had. Adam pulling the front of the pack is making everyone better. This group is not afraid to push themselves, they have been phenomenal at completing workouts and not dropping out of workouts. Everyone is healthy and I am really happy with our depth and excited for Friday to see how it shakes out," Butler said. "Any given day we could have a different seven.  We haven't backed off and we won't yet, we have been doing three workouts week and they have been really working hard which I think will pay off."

Friday's meet is the first of four regular season meets.