The future looks bright for the Illinois men's cross country team, but the potential could not come together during the 2003 season that ended Saturday at the NCAA Midwest Regional in Stillwater, Okla.

"Just like any sport, as you mature physically and experience-wise they'll have the maturity," said Illinois head cross country coach Paul Pilkington. "We're young. Out of that group that went to the Region we only lose (senior) Brent (Pfeiffer) and the guys know what they need to do as far as developing further."

The Illini finished eighth as a team and had the third-best freshman performance by Trent Hoerr while Jason Bill gave the fifth best finish by a sophomore. Bill led the Illini finishing 15th overall and Hoerr earned the 27th position in the race.

The performance Bill gave Saturday would please most sophomores in the country, but Bill set a high standard during his freshman season. As a freshman, Bill finished seventh at the 2002 Midwest Regional and earned the only individual berth by a freshman to the NCAA Cross Country National Championships.

Early in the 2003 season, Bill was running better than he had as a freshman and brought speculation of becoming an All-American cross country runner. In the last three races of the season Bill suffered from an abdominal muscle injury that attacked the runner approximately five kilometers into each of the last three races.

"We don't have the depth without Jason healthy to be a real good team," Pilkington said. "It's frustrating we've got a potential NCAA qualifier and All-American and he can't get through a race without side stitch problems. That's not only frustrating for him, but for the team as a whole."

Bill improved Saturday from his season-worst finish of 41st two weeks ago at the Big Ten Cross Country Championships. After starting the year running with the nation's best runners, Bill wishes he had enjoyed those successes more now that he has experienced the lows he has struggled through in the season concluding meets.

"It's going to make me enjoy the good parts of running a lot more," Bill said. "After starting off, I was running with All-Americans and I thought I was on another level. I guess I can learn from it in that respect. Don't take anything for granted and enjoy the good races."

Along with Hoerr, good races came from junior Kris Cunningham and Pfeiffer on Saturday.

"We had very good races out of Trent, Kris and Brent Pfeiffer," Pilkington said. "We had a bigger gap after our fifth runner than I would have liked, but they ran probably the best race of the season for those three. Yeah, I think that was their best races of the year."

Saturday's race concluded Pfeiffer's cross country career running for the Illini and he likes how things finished for him.

"I wish we could have done better as a team," Pfeiffer said. "Individually, for most of (Saturday's) race, I was focused and trying to race other people so I was pretty happy with the way I ran."

The Illini set high standards to achieve in 2003, but though they fell short of most of those accomplishments that does not make it a bad season.

"From top to bottom everyone expected more from the season," Pfeiffer said. "I don't know how realistic some of our expectations were too. Looking back, I'm not disappointed, but race to race we thought we could have run better pretty much every race."

Illinois finishers: 15. Jason Bill, 31:37; 27. Trent Hoerr, 32:05; 37. Kris Cunningham, 32:18; 48. Brent Pfeiffer, 32:33; 77. Jon Houseworth, 33:09; 88. Tim Hobbs, 33:28; 148. Eric Tietz, 36:11.