Nov. 9, 2001

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- The men's and women's cross country teams head to Carbondale, Ill., for the Midwest Regional Cross Country meet, hosted by Southern Illinois University tomorrow. The meet will be the last meet this season that the Tigers have to qualify for the NCAA Championship meet.

"Our kids are excited to race," cross country coach Jared Wilmes said. "We just need to compete hard and put ourselves in a position to be successful."

Thirty teams will compete at the regional meet, located at the south end of the SIU campus next to Abe Martin Field. Men's teams that will be strong competition for the Tigers in the 10K event include Big 12 foes Nebraska and Oklahoma State as well as Minnesota, Iowa and Loyola. The women, who will run a 6K, will face strong teams in Minnesota, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Northwestern and Illinois. The men will run first at 10 a.m. with the women to follow at 11:15 a.m.

The top two teams at each regional automatically qualify for the NCAA Championships with other teams "on the bubble" for qualifying. While both the men's and women's squads hope to qualify as a team, an individual can qualify if his or her team does not qualify.

One year ago, the men placed second at the 2000 Midwest Regional and the women placed third. Both teams qualified for the NCAA National Meet during the 2000 season.

Results of the meet will be posted at both www.mutigers.com and at www.siusalukis.com following the meet.