The University of Saskatchewan Huskies compete within the Canada West Universities Athletic Association conference as part of Canadian Interuniversity Sport. In order to win a CIS championship, which is top honours in the country’s university athletics, teams must qualify and win their conference’s playoffs, and win the CIS playoffs — the only exception in qualifying for playoffs is that the host school automatically competes. Other conferences in the CIS include the Ontario University Athletics, the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec and the Atlantic University Sport.
Coming off the 2010-11 season, the Huskies saw a few of their teams put up their strongest showings in history. This year, a few of the Huskies’ teams have rosters in place to win conference championships and some star players to break national records. Other teams, of course, will finish at the bottom of their division as they have young rosters and are rebuilding for the future.
The Huskies women’s cross country team will likely finish higher than last year following the return of veteran Jodi Souter.
Souter did not compete last year but was the Canada West athlete of the year in the 2009-10 season. She finished seventh in the CIS that year with a run of 17:30.3 and was named a CIS first team all-Canadian.
She will be joined by another fifth-year, Caitlin Warkentin. Warkentin was the Canada West athlete of the year last year and finished fourth in the CIS with a time of 18:29.0. She was also a CIS first team all-Canadian.
Gabrielle Edwards will be the strongest rookie joining them this year. She was twice awarded the Saskatchewan midget female track athlete of the year award in 2008 and 2009 and was chosen as Saskatchewan’s flag bearer at the 2011 Western Canada Summer Games where she competed in triathlon.
On the men’s side, the team will likely finish near the bottom of the CIS once again.
Fourth-year Samir Marin will lead the team along with second year Eric Mueller.
Marin finished 60th in the CIS last year with a run of 34:56.0 while Mueller finished 90th with a time 35:56.0.
In CIS cross country competition, the men run 10km while the women run 5km.