The Duke cross country team is heading out to the Midwest this weekend to face some of the top teams in the nation at the Pre-NCAA meet in Cedar Falls, Iowa Saturday.
For the women's team, this will be the first meet with a full roster. After October 3rd's fourth-place finish at the Notre Dame Invitational, its competition will be even tougher in Iowa. The women's top performers at Notre Dame--Natasha Roetter, Laura Stanley, Paige Miller, Shannon Rowbury and Lauren Matic--will be facing their toughest competition of the year. The top-five ranked teams in the nation--Brigham Young, Stanford, Arizona State, Michigan State, and Notre Dame--will all be among the teams competing.
At the 2002 Pre-NCAA meet in Terre Haute, Ind., the women's team finished fifth led by then-freshman Caroline Bierbaum's 13th-place finish. Sophomore Sally Meyerhoff finished third for the team last year, coming in 32nd. With the addition of Roetter, this year's team put together a tight top-five pack that finished within a one minute and nine seconds spread at Notre Dame.
On the men's side, the team is looking to improve on its 26th-place finish at last year's Pre-NCAA meet. The squad was led by current-senior Chris Williams, who finished in 67th place on the 8K course.
At the Notre Dame meet, the team was led by junior Nick Schneider, who was named ACC Men's Cross Country Performer of the Week. Schneider ran his top 8K time of the year, 17:41. Competition at this year's meet also includes the top five teams in the country--Stanford, Wisconsin, Northern Arizona, Brigham Young and Colorado.
Along with the top seven runners on each team competing at the Pre-NCAA meet, some runners will run in the open race in Iowa. For other runners, there is the North Carolina Collegiate Championships in Greenville, N.C.
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