Sept. 22, 2011
Nashville, Tenn. –
After resting his top runners last week, Head Coach Steve Keith feels his women cross country athletes are prepared for the Roy Griak Invitational in Minneapolis, Minnesota this weekend.
Competing will be runners Jordan White, Louise Hannallah, Alexa Rogers, Kristen Findley, Kristen Smith, Kristabel Doebel-Hickok and freshmen Amira Joseph and Grace Orders.
Smith, a transfer from Michigan State, will be running her first race with the Commodores.
“She should fit in with the three musketeers from the first race,” said Keith, referring to White, Rogers and Hannallah, who placed first, second, and third at the Belmont-VU Opener to start the season. “They should be pretty close to each other. In a meet this big with close to 300 runners, running a tight group is going to be really important because 10 seconds could be 25 places.”
The Roy Griak meet is the first race of the season where Vanderbilt can potentially earn crucial head-to-head points that could translate into a bid at the nationals at the end of the season. Because of that, Keith chose to sit his best runners at Vanderbilt’s home meet last weekend, and run a “b” squad, who placed fourth out of 24 schools and earned freshman Joseph a trip to Minnesota through her performance.
“This is the first weekend that the season really counts, so to speak, so we just want to be fresh and race at our best,” explained Keith. “It’s tough to recover from our home course in a meet the weekend before and still run at your best when you’re competing at a national level field like this.”
Schools taking part in the meet include: Arizona, Arizona State, Boise State, Brigham Young, California, Charlotte, Colorado State, Connecticut, Drake, Hamline, Idaho State, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Long Beach State, Michigan State, Minnesota, North Carolina State, North Dakota State, Northwestern, Oklahoma, Penn State, South Carolina, South Dakota State, St. Ignatius, University of Mary, University of Washington, Vanderbilt, and Wisconsin.
Of those schools, eight are nationally ranked, while several others are receiving votes. Vanderbilt received eight votes in this past week’s national coaches’ poll, released by the USTFCCCA.
The Commodore men’s cross country team has the weekend off to rest for a race at Louisville next weekend, where Keith will take both his men’s and women’s teams.
