Sept. 3, 2009
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Vanderbilt men’s and women’s cross country teams will open up the 2009 season this weekend as they host the Belmont-Vanderbilt Opener at Percy Warner Park Friday. The women’s race will begin at 5:30 p.m., while the men’s race will follow at 6 p.m.
“The first meet of the season is a real good test for coaches to see where the kids are and how they stack up against good competition,” Head Coach Steve Keith said. “With this being the first meet, everybody is trying to get a feel of where their team is at but it’s nice to start the season on the right track.”
Joining the Commodores in Nashville this weekend will be Alabama, Belmont, Lipscomb, Middle Tennessee, Murray State, Tennessee, UAB and Union College. The women’s race will consist of nine teams while the men’s race will have seven teams.
“We have five of the top nine women’s teams from last year’s NCAA Regional, so it will be a very solid opener for us,” Keith said.
Both the men and the women’s programs return a lot of experience from a season ago and the Commodores look to reach new heights in 2009. The women’s team will look to defend its home turf this weekend at Percy Warner Park after winning the Belmont-Vanderbilt Opener and Commodore Classic last fall.
The women’s squad will once again be led by All-SEC performers Rita Jorgensen and Kristabel Doebel-Hickok. Jorgensen captured individual titles at both of VU’s home meets last season (Belmont-VU Opener and Commodore Classic). Vanderbilt was running its best times at the end of the 2008 season as it posted a seventh place finish, and nearly missing sixth place at the NCAA South Regional Championships.
Last season at the Opener the women’s squad had three runners place in the top-10 individually (Jorgensen, 1st, Doebel-Hickok, 3rd, Amanda Scott 10th). This weekend will mark the first collegiate races for the highly touted newcomers of Allie Scalf and Kristen Findley. Both runners will make an immediate contribution to the program.
On the men’s side, the Commodores will have four new faces on the course this season after losing three to graduation. Senior Thomas Davis and sophomore Jenner Kizer return after leading the Commodores in nearly every race a season ago. The men’s program excelled both on the course and in the classroom last season as they possessed the highest overall grade point average (3.755) among all NCAA Division I programs.
The men’s team placed third out of nine teams at last year’s Belmont-VU Opener after being paced by Davis and Kizer.
The Belmont-VU meet features shorter running distances than future competitions for both the men (5K) and the women (4K). The shorter race will allow the coaching staff to gauge the fitness level of their runners and to formulate an idea of where to base further training.
“The great thing about this first race is both the men and the women are running shorter than their normal race distance,” Keith said. “That allows us to go out and be aggressive and know that our fitness will come along with more training for a longer race.”
