EUREKA - What are we to make of the Eureka High School girls cross country team, the Pantagraph area's highest state-ranked girls squad at No. 7 in Class A?

The Hornets have had an up-and-down season, looking fantastic while winning invitationals at St. Joseph, El Paso and Delavan and lackluster in placing 14th at Peoria (Woodruff) and ninth at Amboy.

Eleventh-year coach Brett Charlton hopes the green-clad Hornets can show their true colors the next three weeks beginning with Saturday's 1 p.m. Eureka Regional at Lower Lake Park.

The team's roller-coaster season stems from being one of the smallest squads of the Charlton era with eight girls and then having some absent for various reasons, including injuries and illness.

Eureka won't be at full strength for the regional, but Charlton said the goal remains winning that and the Oct. 28 sectional and placing in the top three at the Nov. 4 state meet.

"I'm a believer you don't make excuses," said Charlton, who has been impressed that his No. 6 and 7 runners, juniors Stephanie Fellner and Kara Cannon, have stepped up to the No. 4 and 5 roles while junior Bonnie Martin and sophomore Erica Beemer have been out. "I've watched those girls drop a lot of time.

"In reality, I think we've become a better team. If we get everybody together, I think we're going to have a lot of success."

Leading the way is junior Olivia Klaus, who placed 14th in last year's state meet and 12th in 2004.

She placed second to three-time state champion Katelyn Bastert of Carthage at Amboy Oct. 9 and defended her Corn Belt Conference title Saturday.

"We've been running her with the boys this year, and I think that has worked real well," Charlton said. "It gives her kids to practice with every day. It pushes her to run harder.

"I monitor it to make sure she doesn't get too tired or fatigued. She's having the best year she's ever had."

Charlton believes Klaus would be the state meet favorite most years, but not with Bastert in the field. For her part, Klaus doesn't mind chasing Bastert.

"She pushes me a lot in the first mile," Klaus said. "I think it's better when she's there. I see the distance between us and I just try to keep the distance the same."

The gap at Amboy was 40 seconds.

While Klaus runs up front, her teammates try to finish within 80 seconds of each other. The leader of that "second" pack is Klaus' freshman sister, Deidra, who took eighth in the Corn Belt.

"I thought I would be doing a lot worse than I am right now, but I still want to get better," said Deidra Klaus, who admits to being a little intimidated having such a talented sister as a teammate.

Olivia Klaus said having a sister on the team "is weird because we really don't get along, but I'm coping with it. It's getting better. "

The team's steady No. 3 runner is senior captain Emily Gerber, a three-time state finisher who ran 13th in the Corn Belt.

The usual No. 4 runner, Martin, has been battling an ankle injury. She joined Olivia Klaus as a member of last spring's state champion 3,200-meter track and field relay.

Olivia Klaus said her teammates' biggest problem is failing to believe in themselves.

"A lot of them don't think they can do good," she said. "If we can get that better, we can do good as a team."

Eureka has done very well the past eight years, never placing lower than 15th in the state meet. This season the Hornets have been ranked as high as third, but they haven't made it easy to judge their true ability.