Michael Jordan has the best shot at winning a national championship when he competes in the 3,000-meter steeplechase on Friday (my story is now online here), but USI also has four other runners who will participate in the meet at Pueblo, Colo.

Freshman Johnnie Guy seems to have the best chance at earning all-American status, which is finishing eighth or better in the final. He’ll be competing in both the 5,000 meters and the 10,000 meters. He has run the 18th-fastest time in Division II at 5,000 and the 12th-fastest time in the 10,000. Trouble is, he’ll also be running against several runners who train at altitude while he, of course, trains here in Evansville. Plus, he’s only running his second 10K. “MJ (Jordan) has talked tome about not really making your move more than once because of oxygen debt,” said Guy.

Senior Lauren Minor is making her first trip to nationals. She’ll be running in the women’s 3,000 steeplechase and is ranked 16th nationally. “I need to stay within the top four in the (preliminary race) and make it to the next day,” she said. “I’d like to be in the 10:40s range. I think that’s something I can do right now.”

Freshman Tyler Schickel will run in the 1,500 meters. His time ranks 15th nationally. His goal? “Anything below a sub-3:50,” he said.

Junior Erika Wilson is making her second appearance at nationals. She’s running the 10,000 and has a time ranked 21st nationally.

The schedule (all times CDT): Men’s 1,500 meters preliminaries, Thursday, 6:25 p.m.; women’s 3,000 steeplechase prelims, Thursday, 7:40 p.m.; men’s 3,000 steeplechase prelims, Thursday, 8:10 p.m.; women’s 10K final, Thursday, 9:10 p.m.; men’s 10K final, Thursday, 9:50 p.m.; women’s 3,000 steeplechase final, Friday, 8:15 p.m.; men’s 3,000 steeplechase final, Friday, 8:35 p.m.; women’s 5K final, Saturday, 9:05 p.m.; men’s 5K final, Saturday, 9:30 p.m.

Anyone interested in watching them race, simply click the video link at www.gousieagles.com on the day of the race.

Michael Jordan, USI’s all-American runner, suffered yet another health scare recently. To go with the back spasms that contributed to his poor finish in last fall’s national cross country championship and the appendicitis and subsequent appendectomy he endured a year ago while flying home from the Mt. SAC Relays in California, he bruised his left kidney in the GLVC Outdoor Track and Field Championships on May 3. He was going over a hurdle in the 3,000-meter steeplechase — his strongest event and the one he could win a national championship in on Friday night at the D-II Championships — when he was accidentally kneed in the back by another runner. He ran in the 1,500 meters the next day but didn’t feel well. Then he began urinating blood. Fortunately, coach Mike Hillyard got him to a hospital, where doctors discovered some internal bleeding and diagnosed a bruised kidney. Forty-eight hours later, Jordan was fine. He insists he’s still OK.

Get hot in the postseason and there’s no telling how far your team can go. Bellarmine is the latest example of that. The Knights, seeded sixth in the six-team Midwest Regional taking place at Drury University in Springfield, Mo., beat top-seeded Ashland University 13-10 in the opening game of the regional on Thursday. That means that Bellarmine is still undefeated in the postseason after winning four games and the GLVC tourney title last week.

Not to take anything away from Bellarmine, but USI coach Tracy Archuleta still believes his team was just as good as any team in the GLVC tourney. It’s just that the Eagles faltered when they couldn’t afford to falter and lost two games at Bellarmine at the end of the regular season, keeping them out of the tournament. I still think USI had the pitching to go far, although with only six pitchers that might have been difficult if it had fallen into the losers’ bracket. But we’ll never know. Instead, sit back and watch what happens when a team that ended the regular season only five games over .500 (by comparison, USI finished 12 games over .500) gets on a roll.

Because it missed the GLVC tournament, the USI baseball team will not be going to the NCAA tournament. One indicator was USI’s dropping from third in the Midwest Region rankings to eighth this week (only six teams receive a regional berth), a sure sign that the Eagles are not going to make the eight-team regional field. Then Ray Simmons, USI’s sports information director, confirmed that  the NCAA no longer gives regional berths to teams that don’t qualify for their conference tournaments. Which makes perfect sense. I have to admit I was leery of the Eagles getting in without being able to get in the first postseason tourney. They screwed up what started out as a great season. They won 11 of their first 12 games. Then they lost their next seven and nine of their next 10, and that pretty much was that. Now they’re working as the grounds crew at Bosse Field and at their own field for the GLVC tournament, merely spectators for the second straight year at a tournament their school is hosting. It must be humbling, if not aggravating.

Two losses in a doubleheader on Friday at Bellarmine (8-7 in game one being the worst since Bellarmine won in the bottom of the ninth 10th inning, then falling 7-4 in game two) have put the USI baseball team in an extremely difficult spot. It absolutely must win its next two games to have even the slimmest chance of making the GLVC tournament in Evansville next week. If one or both of those games — one on Saturday and one on Sunday — are rained out, they won’t be made up, which would be as bad as a loss (or two losses).

Poor pitching and poor fielding — which had been strengths — doomed the Eagles in Friday’s opener. No. 1 starter Ben Wright was lit up for seven runs, four of them earned, and nine hits over 5 2/3 innings while Brandon Shaw, one of the team’s best relievers, took the loss. Meanwhile, USI committed three errors. In the second game, starter David Toth was hammered for six runs on nine hits in just 3 1/3 innings.

But this is more than just two games. The Eagles have only themselves to blame. Despite a late-season run of six consecutive conference victories (before Friday, of course), a slump in March when they lost nine of 10 games now looks devastating. The worst was being swept in back-to-back doubleheaders by Missouri S&T March 22-23 at the USI Baseball Field. Those put the Eagles on the wrong side of a series of tiebreakers that they probably won’t be able to overcome.

USI’s only hope if they don’t get in the GLVC tournament is a slim chance of still making the NCAA tournament. The Eagles were ranked third in the Midwest Region this week and eight teams are selected for the regional. But I don’t think what happened today will help their chances.

UPDATE: Ray Simmons, USI’s sports information director, sent out a list of possibilities for making the GLVC tournament depending on what the Eagles do over the next two days. Here’s the entire release:

USI and Bellarmine are slated to finish the regular season and the four-game series with 11 a.m. CDT single games on Saturday and Sunday. The Eagles need a pair of victories in the final two games, plus the University of Indianapolis to lose three games in the four-game series with Lewis University, and/or Maryville University to split its four-game series with the University of Illinois Springfield, and/or Missouri University of Science & Technology to lose all four games in its series with Rockhurst University.

No, it doesn’t look good for USI.

USI’s baseball team could do just that. Right now the Screaming Eagles are ranked third in the Midwest Region (after being ranked second one week ago). If they miss making the GLVC tournament, which takes place next week in Evansville, conceivably they could still end up in the eight-team NCAA Midwest Regional (usually the top eight ranked teams in the region qualify). That happened in 1989, when the GLVC tournament was much smaller and USI didn’t qualify with a 9-7 league record but received a berth in the national tourney (the Eagles exited quickly, losing twice).

Not that anybody is expecting a similar scenario this year. USI would rather make the GLVC tournament. Winning at least three of four games in the final regular-season series at Bellarmine on Friday through Sunday would guarantee that. Then the Eagles would be home free, but not at home. GLVC rules will not allow the host team to play on its home field. So the Eagles would have to play all their games at Bosse Field.

That should be an advantage. Several members of the team played for Southern Indiana Athletic Conference schools, which frequently play at the spacious ballpark. That includes leading hitter Reece Rounder, a North graduate, whose eyes lit up with the possibility of returning to the venerable confines on the near north side.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “So many of us have played so many games at Bosse Field. It would be great to have your home fans out there cheering you on.”

USI’s Michael Jordan now has the fastest time in the 3,000-meter steeplechase in NCAA Division II. The senior broke his own school record again on Sunday night, slicing eight seconds off his time with a clocking of 8 minutes, 42.63 seconds at the Payton Jordan Cardinal Invitational in Stanford, Calif. That puts him ahead of Western State junior Ieuan Thomas, who previously had D-II’s best time at 8:46.20.

So Jordan has broken his own record twice this year. Only this time he only needed a little more than week to lop eight seconds off. Looks like USI coach Mike Hillyard’s guess that Jordan could get down to 8:38 will come true — it’s just eight seconds away now. If Jordan drops his time that low, as I wrote in Sunday’s Courier & Press, he not only would probably win the Division II national title in the steeplechase, he might qualify for the U.S. Championships and a shot at earning a spot on the U.S. team for the world championships. Hillyard thinks that’s a long shot, but one can dream, right?