Cross Country Set For Pre-NCAA Meet
10/12/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Cross Country
Oct. 12, 2006
EAST LANSING, Mich. - The Michigan State men's and women's cross country teams will compete at the Pre-NCAA meet, hosted by Indiana State, on Oct. 14, in Terre Haute, Ind. A total of 45 of the top 60 teams in the nation will participate in the Pre-Nationals Invitational. A record 87 women's teams and 86 men's teams have entered to run on the same course used for the 2006 NCAA Championships in November.
Ranked No. 21 in the nation, the Michigan State women's team moved up another spot in the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association poll, released Oct. 10. The women are also ranked No. 3 in the Great Lakes Region, while the men's team is ranked No. 7 in the regional poll. MSU has not competed since the Roy Griak Invitational on Sept. 23, in which the women placed fifth and the men finished 10th.
In the women's field, 24 of the top 30 teams will be represented, including Stanford, Colorado and Michigan ranked No. 1 through No. 3 respectively.
The men will be without the top two teams in the country, Wisconsin and Arkansas, but return a field that includes the top-two runners on the ISU 8K course, Josh Rohatinsky of BYU (23:30.7, second all-time) and Liberty's Josh McDougal (23:12.6, all-time course record). The men's field will include 21 of the nation's top teams.
"Our main focus is to see if we have made progress over the past three weeks of training - if what the coaches are seeing at practice transfers over to competition," Director of Cross Country and Track and Field Walt Drenth stated. "The women have set themselves up nicely to earn a qualifying position at the national meet in November and this will be a good opportunity for the men to step it up and do the same."