Oct. 13, 2004
COLUMBIA, Mo. - This Saturday the Missouri cross country teams will compete in the NCAA Pre-National Meet in Terre Haute, Ind. The Indiana State campus is the host of this November's NCAA Championships and each year the host school composes a meet that previews the championship course and the possible teams involved. The Missouri women's team will run in their first meet ranked in the national top 10.
The field and the best teams are equally divided into two separate races for both the men and women. The No. 10 Tiger women will run in the "Blue" race at 11:00 a.m., and are one of 13 ranked teams in the race. Mizzou will face tough competition with No. 1 Stanford, No. 6 Notre Fame, and No. 13 BYU among the bevy of ranked teams. The Tigers will also face conference foes Baylor and Texas Tech. Baylor enters the weekend 16th in the national coaches' poll.
In last week's coaches' poll the Missouri women entered into the national top ten for the first time in the program's history.
The Tiger men will face 11 ranked teams in their eight-kilometer "White" division race at 12:50 p.m. Among competition is No. 2 Stanford, No. 8 North Carolina State, and No. 9 Notre Dame to name a few. The Tigers will look to score high against Illinois, Illinois State, Iowa, and Southwest Missouri State, the other teams from the Midwest Region.
"The races speak for themselves," said Jared Wilmes, Head Cross Country Coach. "Our teams have made great progress in the last two weeks since the Notre Dame meet and we are much healthier. We're starting to come together as a team and we are looking forward to line up against the best teams in the country in this meet, the first step of the championship season."
Two weeks ago, the Missouri women finished above four higher-ranked teams at the Notre Dame Invitational. Junior Amanda Bales finished ninth overall in the race, clinching a personal-best time of 17:01 in the five-kilometer race. A few days later, Bales was named Big 12 Runner of the Week for the fourth time overall in her career.
Visit mutigers.com Saturday evening for a complete recap and results from all races from the NCAA Pre-National Meet.