Oct. 1, 2009
Madison, Wisc. - Texas A&M will be part of a field of teams that open a new course this weekend during the Wisconsin adiidas Invitational hosted by the University of Wisconsin. The Badgers will officially cut the ribbon on their brand new Thomas Zimmer Championship Cross Country Course at University Ridge on Saturday, Oct. 3.
The Aggies will join Arkansas, Auburn, BYU, Duke, Georgetown, Illinois, Iowa, Lamar, Marquette, Michigan, Nebraska, Syracuse, Wisconsin-La Crosse and host Wisconsin in an interregional matchup. The men race at 11 a.m. and cover an 8,000-meter course while the women start at 11:45 a.m. and race over a 5,000-meters.
Highlights of the course include rolling hills and valleys while the outside loop of 2,500 meters also includes runs through a section of dense woods.
After opening the season the first weekend of September in Waco with younger members of the A&M squad, the majority of the Aggie team will see its first action of the fall this weekend. A weather cancellation of the Texas A&M Invitational in mid September kept the Aggies in training mode through the rest of the month.
Traveling north for the A&M men will be Mitch Bible, C.J. Brown, Andrew Montes, Graham Northcutt, Joe Sauvageau and Jimmy Welin. The Aggie women will be represented by Sarah Balfour, Kirsten Brown, Christina Munoz, Natosha Rogers and Tara Upshaw.
In recent polls Wisconsin men rank No. 4 in the nation while Georgetown is No. 10. Other ranked teams include No. 17 Arkansas, No. 23 Michigan and No. 27 Duke. In the women's field ranked teams include Illinois at No. 10 and Georgetown at No. 11. Other ranked squads include No. 17 Michigan, No. 21 Syracuse, No. 23 BYU, Wisconsin at No. 26, No. 28 Arkansas and No. 29 Duke.
Amid men's regional rankings, Wisconsin is No. 1 in the Great Lakes while Georgetown tops the Mid-Atlantic. From the South Central Region the top three ranked men's teams are represented in Arkansas, Lamar and Texas A&M, the defending region champions.