BY MIKE POTTER : The Herald-Sun
mpotter@heraldsun.com
Oct 22, 2003 : 10:13 pm ET

Mike Lawson sounds optimistic.

N.C. Central's veteran track and cross country coach said he thinks his men's team can make a little history today if the Eagles run well today.

Lawson said the Eagles, who finished third last season, have a shot to win the men's portion of the CIAA cross country meet today at SAS Soccer Park in Cary. That would be a first in the tenure of Lawson, who is in his 15th season as the Eagles' head coach.

And it should be another Triangle battle like it was last year in Pleasant Garden, when perennial power St. Augustine's -- coached by U.S. Olympic track and field coach George Williams -- took top honors with Shaw second and the Eagles third.

In last year's women's meet , Shaw was first with St. Aug second and the Eagles third. Lawson said that it would take an exceptional run from his women's team to match that finish today, since four-time CIAA champion Katerina Glosova has graduated.

The 5-kilometer women's race starts at 10 a.m., with the men's 8K race beginning at 11.

"We're very excited about our men's team," Lawson said. "My assistant coach Musa Williams really went out and got us some good distance runners. You've got to have at least five good ones to win the conference meet, and we think we have them now."

If NCCU wins the championship, it would probably be based on a great finish from its top three runners, who could finish as high as the top five.

Sophomore Jean Pierre Joubert, a South Africa native who transferred from Western Kentucky, has dominated races against Division II runners this season, setting meet records in the DRFC race in Danville, Va., on Sept. 13 and in the Shaw Invitational in Garner eight days later. In the Danville race, Joubert out-kicked freshman teammate Joseph Estevez by one second, and sophomore teammate Andre Atchison was third.

Lawson hopes for good finishes from those three to spark the Eagles to an upset. Estevez, whose brother Daniel also will be among NCCU's seven entrants today, is a graduate of Raleigh's Leesville Road High. Atchison, a native of Syracuse, N.Y., was the Eagles' top man with a sixth-place finish in last season's CIAA race.

The women's team doesn't have another Glosova, but Lawson said he's counting on sophomores Christina Harris and Sharonda Arnold to lead the Eagles.

Most of NCCU's other women runners are from Joli Robinson's basketball team.

If this season's meet resembles last year's, many of the runners in both the men's and women's races are basketball players getting formal preseason workouts.

"We're going to show up and do our best," Lawson said of his women's team.