Cross Country: Off to South Bend

MORGANTOWN, W. Va. – Following nearly three weeks of rest and training, the No. 18 West Virginia University cross country team will compete at the 55th annual Adidas Notre Dame Cross Country Invitational on Friday afternoon.

The 5K meet will take place at the nine-hole golf course located on the University of Notre Dame's campus in South Bend, Ind. WVU will compete in the 2 p.m. EST Women's Gold race.

"We will find out a great deal about who the 2010 Mountaineer cross country team is this weekend," WVU coach Sean Cleary says.

While all the runners who competed at the BIG EAST Preview will also run this race, several runners will be making their first appearances of the 2010 season. These include junior Ahna Lewis, who has competed at two national championships in her WVU career, and Sarah-Anne Brault, who also has championship experience.

"Ahna brings great experience and talent to the group this weekend," Cleary says. "Both Ahna and Sarah-Anne qualified for the NCAA Regionals in track and field and will add great leadership to the group that ran at Syracuse."

At the BIG EAST Preview, sophomore Katie Gillespie came in first place overall out of 76 runners while senior Maria Dalzot arrived in 16th place.

"We need Maria to close the gap to Katie and we need to find a fifth runner that closes the gap to our leaders," Cleary says. "Right now, we are 90 seconds back from Katie to the fifth. This cannot continue if we wish to reach our goals. The motto for the race will be, "Close the gap."

Scheduled to compete at the race include strong running programs Ball State, Buffalo, Indiana State, Valparaiso, Youngstown State and Fresno State.

"We have great tradition, we are fit and our expectations are very high," Cleary says. "We have reevaluated our goals and begun work on what we need to do to keep this program at the national class level. We will just do our very best and let the cards fall where they will."

Schedule

Next Event

Footer

Upcoming Events