July 12, 2011
Women’s Schedule | Men’s Schedule | 2011 Combined Schedule 
Vanderbilt Cross Country Coach Steve Keith announced the teams’ upcoming fall schedules on Tuesday. The schedules are again highlighted by two home meets in early September.
“The schedule has been very productive for us the last few years so we are staying with some of the meets we are most familiar with,” Keith said. “The two home meets open the season, and we like that because the kids get competition in and we aren’t traveling and missing school, and it helps us get into a routine. Ultimately, next year we will be hosting SECs so our home meet will be a much bigger deal in 2012.”
The women’s team enters 2011 off its best year in school history after placing third at the SEC Championships and third at the NCAA South Regional. The men’s program lost just one senior from last year, and continues to improve.
Given the team’s success last season and the strong nucleus of returning runners, Keith has added two additional meets for just the women’s program, which will pit the runners against top national competition. The meets are the Roy Griak Invitational (Sept. 24) and Wisconsin-Adidas Invite (Oct. 14).
“Last year finishing third in the conference and third in the regional were program bests, and it put us on the board when they were doing consideration for the National Championships, but we didn’t have quite the quality wins that we needed,” Keith said. “The maturity and experience of the team is such that they want to go for it, so we put two new meets on the schedule that will provide that national level of competition.”
Both squads will open the season Sept. 2 at the Belmont-VU Opener at Percy Warner Park. The women have won the meet the last two seasons, while the men placed fourth last year.
On Sept. 17, the Commodores will again compete at Percy Warner Park for the Commodore Classic. The women’s squad has finished first at the meet the last three seasons with the men last winning the meet in 2009.
The women’s squad will compete at the Roy Griak Invitational on Sept. 24 in Minneapolis. After a week away from competition, the men’s team will join the women’s squad on Oct. 1 at the Greater Louisville Invitational.
The final regular season meets will take place in mid-October. The women will head to Madison, Wisc., Oct. 14 for the Wisconsin-Adidas Invite before traveling down to Terre Haute, Ind., to compete with the men’s team at NCAA Pre-Nationals.
“Going to Louisville and keeping Pre-Nationals on our schedule is really good for the men because they are awesome competitions for them,” Keith said. “We will pretty much be running a second team on the women’s side at those meets, which will be great for their development and experience. The meets will also help us determine our 10 runners for the SECs.”
The SEC Championships will be held Oct. 31 in Knoxville, while the NCAA South Regional will take place Nov. 12 in Tuscaloosa, Ala.
NCAA Championships will be held Nov. 21 in Terre Haute, Ind.
