The University of Memphis men’s and women’s cross country teams will be packing up for the Conference USA Championships at Greenfield, N.C., this weekend.
Both squads have had successful regular seasons, with the women’s team finishing among the top six in five of their six regular season meets, including a first place finish at Arkansas.
The Lady Tigers also had two second place finishes at Murray State and Austin Peay. They finished third at the Plough Park Invitational, which Memphis hosted.
Women’s head coach Stan Hollenbach said it would be tough to predict how well his team would finish in the conference because he hasn’t seen most of the competition.
“Our conference is so spread out around the nation,” Hollenbach said. “The only team in the conference we’ve seen, which was St. Louis, we beat.
“Place-wise, I don’t know where we’ll finish, but this has been a successful year for us.”
Junior runner Wendy Ragle has been the team’s top runner and Hollenbach said he expects her to keep it up in North Carolina.
Ragle was the first top Lady Tiger finisher in each meet this year. She was also a Tiger 30 Award recipient for having one of the top 30 GPAs for all Tiger athletes. She also received Conference USA Runner of the Week honors for the week of Oct. 17.
Though he wouldn’t predict how the ladies would do specifically, Hollenbach did give his opinion on some of the conference favorites.
“Marquette is ranked in the top 15 in the country,” Hollenbach said. “They’ll probably win the thing. South Florida is also extremely good.”
The men’s team has also been having a better than average year, according to men’s cross country coach Glenn Hays.
Hays said his team, which consists of three freshmen and three juniors, has been running on all cylinders.
“We have a better team than we’ve had in recent years,” Hays said. “In the past we’ve finished at the end of the pack. This year we are better than that.”
Among the team’s highlights are the Plough Park Invitational, which the team won, and the Murray State Invitational, which saw them place second.
Hays said he plans for his three top runners, junior Balazs Laszlo and freshman Ricky McLain and Derek Nakluski to fare well in the tournament.
“They’ll probably finish (No.) 1, 2, 3 for our team” Hays said. “That’s how they’ve been finishing just about all year.”
