Marquette Cross Country Competes in BIG EAST Championships
10/25/2007 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country
Oct. 25, 2007
MILWAUKEE - The Marquette cross country teams will travel to Louisville, Ky., on Saturday, Oct. 27, to face teams from the BIG EAST in the conference championships held at E.P. "Tom" Sawyer State Park. The men's 8K race is set to begin at 11 a.m. ET, while the women get underway at 11:50 a.m. ET, running a 6K.
The men will face tough competition as Notre Dame, Georgetown, Louisville and last year's champion Providence are among the top-30 teams in the nation, while Syracuse and Villanova are receiving votes in the USTFCCCA Division I men's poll.
The women's pool will be equally competitive with Georgetown, West Virginia and Providence, who won took the championship last season, all ranked in the nation's top 30.
"The BIG EAST is arguably the most competitive cross country conference in the nation, top-to-bottom," head coach Mike Nelson said. "The main team goal is going to be to perform better than last year. This is a fairly fast course so individual goals will be to walk away with several personal best times."
The Golden Eagle men are coming off a 27th place finish at the highly competitive Pre-NCAA meet two weekends ago. Senior Scott Mueller was the top finisher for the Golden Eagles running a personal-best 24:02 for 46th place.
The women earned 19th place at the Pre-NCAA'S and were led by senior Cassie Peller finishing in 51st place with a time of 21:15. Sophomore Jayne Grebinski was right behind her finishing in 21:16 for 53rd place.
Both squads will be looking to improve upon times from last year's championships, which saw the women finish fifth and the men eight in a pool of 13 teams.
"I'm going to speak with each individual athlete and tell them to run their best race," Nelson said. "If that happens I will be happy, we're not really shooting for a specific place."
