Sprinting toward their first official cross country meet as a program, Indiana University Northwest continued stockpiling local talent to its men’s and women’s programs Wednesday. River Forest’s Caridad Ramos, Lowell’s Mackenzie Nichols, and Lake Station’s Carlos Luna all signed letters of intent to run for coach Javier Heridia’s RedHawks teams this fall.
“You couldn’t ask for a better group of runners to start a program with,” Heridia said of his recruits, including Kankakee Valley’s Allison Rockley. “They’ve already proven themselves running-wise and they’ve proven themselves in the classroom.”
Ramos comes to IUN as the two-mile record holder at River Forest, as well as having been a 2013 Regional qualifier. She was named her team’s Most Valuable Runner in 2010, 2011 and 2012.
She relishes the opportunity to make more history as a member of the first RedHawks cross country team.
“(Heridia) wants to make history, and I’ve made history myself at River Forest because I was the first girl to go to Regionals in 17 years,” Ramos said. “So, being part of history is something I really like to do.”
Ramos has also excelled in the classroom, graduating as Salutatorian from River Forest. She plans to major in psychology with a career goal of becoming a military psychologist.
Nichols, who intends on majoring in business, comes from what Heridia described as a “great program” at Lowell. She was a Regional qualifier in 2009, 2010, and 2011, and qualified with her team at Semi-state in 2010.
“Coach is really motivated and enthusiastic about having good runners on the team,” Nichols said. “I think it’s kind of cool to set a name (for the program).”
An honor roll student at Lake Station, Carlos Luna was voted his team’s Most Valuable Runner as well as 2013 Academic All-Conference team in the Greater South Shore Conference. Luna plans on studying computer animation for films.
“I want to keep getting better and better, get faster times,” Luna said. “Coach told us we would be doing more training than we did in high school, and make us faster than anyone else.”
With the team’s debut about a month away, the RedHawks have been mapping their goals. Individually, faster times are always on the forefront, but building a new program is also on their minds.
“I’d like to see it grow bigger because coming from a small school, cross country wasn’t very popular,” Ramos said. “But seeing we have a strong team already, I just hope it can grow more and people become more interested in it.”
“I think we can compete very well with the local schools and make our stamp,” Heridia said. “We can let IUN make another statement about our rising programs.”