Montana State men’s and women’s cross country teams will get a chance to see where they stack up on the national scene this weekend at the Pre-Nationals in Terra Haute, Indiana.
The meet is a preview of the NCAA Division I championships to be held in late November. There are three categories of races at the meet; the open race and two races that feature faster and slower seeded teams. MSU’s men’s team will run in one of the seeded races and the women will run in the open race on Saturday.
“We hope our men can make a good showing at this meet and possibly position themselves for an at-large bid to the NCAA’s,” head coach Dale Kennedy said. “We really need to beat out some teams that might qualify in their regions to get a shot at nationals.”
Kennedy was referring to the fact that only two teams from each region will automatically qualify for the national meet, and MSU’s region has two teams currently ranked in the top five in the nation. Northern Arizona was ranked number two last week and the University of Colorado was number five.
“In order to secure that spot, all five of our men’s runners will have to run well with that fifth place runner finishing probably higher than 80th,” Kennedy said. “We have four solid guys I know can place well, but we need that fifth guy to step it up.”
There will be 76 teams in the event. Many of the teams are fighting for a qualifying spot similar to MSU. There are 18 automatic qualifiers from the nine regions and 13 at-large teams will gain a bid.
Running for the men will be Matt Adams, Nick Atwood, Patrick Casey, Graydon Curry, Carl Nystuen, Dan Jackson and Tyler Noland. The women’s roster is not set yet due to injury and illness but will include MSU front runner Heather Huag, Kala Jauquet, Rebecca Sorenson, Corrine Malcom, and Tara Will.