Todd Harbour has no desire to go backward.

Despite losing two of his top three runners from a women's cross country team that placed third in the Big 12 and 19th nationally, Harbour has every intention of taking the Bears back to the NCAA Championships for the second straight year.

"They've accepted the challenge and they're ready for it," he said. "We have the people to do it, we just have no margin for error. And that's a little bit scary, just knowing that injuries happen in our sport. We've got to keep this group healthy, and all five of them have to race well when it counts."

While assistant head coach Jon Capron has better depth than ever with the men's team, Harbour has serious concerns after his top five and is having to replace a leadership void left by Mariah Kelly and All-American Rachel Johnson.

Arguably one of the program's best ever, Johnson finished out her cross country career by placing fifth individually at the NCAA Championships, covering the 6,000-meter course in a personal-best time of 19:56.8. Kelly scored in all six of the meets she ran in last year and earned All-Big 12 and all-region honors.

But their leadership is the thing this team misses the most.

"The leadership those two provided over the last four years was amazing, probably the best we've ever had in our program. That's where Maggie (Montoya) and Alex Davis and Maddie (Zimmerman) have to step up. I think physically we're going to be fine. We've got the talent. But the leadership of (Johnson and Kelly) was amazing. They brought a toughness to the group that we had been missing for a couple years."

Montoya is coming off a super sophomore campaign that saw her place seventh in the Big 12, 12th at the region meet and 44th nationally, just outside of the top 40 required for All-American status.

"If Maggie stays healthy, the sky's the limit for her," Harbour said. "I wouldn't put anything past her."

Junior Alex Davis is a two-time all-region pick who placed in the top 20 at the conference and region meets, while sophomore Ann-Marie Dunlap scored in the team's top five in her first six meets before hitting the proverbial wall and being carried across the line by Zimmerman at the NCAA Championships.

Rounding out the top five are Zimmerman and fellow junior Peyton Thomas. After that, though, things are up in the air. Potentially, help could come from University of Washington transfer Chelsea Orr and sophomore Katie Grovatt, who is coming off a stress fracture in her heel.

The women will get a chance to see how they stack up with the nation's best with road trips to the Roy Griak Invitational in Minneapolis, Minn., Sept. 26 and the Wisconsin adidas Invitational in Madison, Wis., Oct. 16.

This is a rare season when the men's team at least appears to be deeper than the women's squad. Not only do the Bears return five of their top seven from last season, JR Hardy scored in all six meets as a sophomore before missing all of last season.

Sophomore Eric Anderson posted top-10 finishes in his first three meets and was the Bears' lead runner in five of seven meets last fall.

"It kind of demonstrated that I needed to train him at a little different level than your normal freshman coming in," Capron said. "I expected him to be able to jump straight onto my team, but I didn't expect him to jump straight into the front of my team. Last year, he was so gung-ho early that he wasn't running his best at the conference and regional meets."

Senior Kyle Scanlan also scored in all seven meets last season and was the Bears' lead runner at both the Pre-National Invitational and the Big 12 Championships. Seniors Matt Galvin and Chris McElroy and junior Jordan West were also regulars in the top five.

"These guys push themselves to the limit pretty regularly," Capron said, "so it's not unheard of to have them banged up. But if you can get that experience they have from getting to the limit once or twice in their lives, then they know how to dodge it a little bit and how to push their bodies and what they can get away with."

Other candidates for the lineup include junior transfer Matt League from Northern Arizona and freshmen Seth Brown and Henry Huff.

After a sixth-place conference finish last year, the Bears' goal is to continue to "climb that ladder" and post their first upper-half finish since placing fifth in 2003.