Cross Country Heads South for Pre National

The Virginia Tech cross country teams left Thursday for Louisville, Kentucky to compete in Saturday’s NCAA Pre-National meet held at E.P. Tom Sawyer Park in Louisville.

The Pre-National meet is a preview of the upcoming NCAA Cross Country National Championship that will be held in Louisville on November. 21. The next two runners may displace runners from opposing teams.

Two-time defending champion Colorado won the men’s team title, while Michigan won the women’s team title. Three of the 11 teams are ranked in the top 10 of the latest poll, including top-ranked Colorado along with third-ranked Oregon and 10-ranked Georgetown. The Pre-Nationals Invitational serves as the pre-cursor for the national championships and features 11 ranked men’s teams and eight ranked squads on the women’s side.

The invitational featured more than 40 teams broken down into men’s and women’s divisions. The men finished fifth overall with 251 points in the seeded 8,000-meter red race while the women finished seventh with 381 points in the seeded 6,000-meter red race.

For the second consecutive outing, freshman Rachel Bales (West Lafayette, Ind./West Lafayette) led the Cardinals to the finish line at the Greater Louisville Classic, placing 84th among scored runners with a time of 19:17.71. The two teams tangled in Seattle on October. 2 with the Ducks winning 36-60 and will race again at Louisville, the Pac-12 meet, the West Region race and the NCAA Championships.

Top 10 Women’s RED Team Scores: 1. She finished second at the Virginia Tech Alumni Invitational and 21 at the Princeton Inter-Regional Invitational. The men’s race begins at 6:30 a.m. Pacific Time, with the women going at 7:15 a.m.