Second year of Arturo Barrios Invitational features 32-team field

COLLEGE STATION – Texas A&M hosts 31 teams competing in the Arturo Barrios Invitational this Saturday, October 19, on the Dale Watts ('71) Cross Country Course. Among the large field of teams, 18 men's programs are ranked among the top 15 in their respective regions while 17 women's programs are regionally ranked.

The 8,000-meter men's race begins at 9 a.m., followed by a 6,000-meter women's race at 9:45 a.m. Live results will be available online at www.flashresults.com.

Five regions – Mid-Atlantic, Mountain, South Central, South, and West – will be represented among the field assembled for the second year of the Invitational named after Aggie legend Arturo Barrios, a member of the Texas A&M Athletics Hall of Fame.

Among the field, Middle Tennessee men are nationally ranked No. 17 and are No. 2 in the South Region. Receiving votes in the national top 30 poll are women's teams from Cal Baptist and Texas.

"We want to keep showcasing our course and this is the meet in which we do that," said Texas A&M assistant coach Wendel McRaven. "It's become the premier meet for us at home. It's exciting that some teams that were here last year had such a positive experience they've decided to come back.

"We feel slowly, but surely, we are turning it into a significant interregional competition. That's the goal. It was really good last year and I think it's going to be a little better this year. It's a little deeper with a bigger field."

Texas A&M men and women are each ranked No. 3 in the South Central region. The men's field includes 18 schools from the South Central, including nine additional ranked programs: Rice (5), McNeese State (8), UT Arlington (9), North Texas (10), Baylor (11), Texas State (12), LSU (13), Abilene Christian (14), and Stephen F. Austin (15).

The women's field has 20 schools from the South Central including 11 additional ranked programs: Texas (2), Baylor (6), Rice (7), LSU (8), Stephen F. Austin (9), McNeese State (10), Abilene Christian (11), UTRGV (12), UT Arlington (13), Texas A&M-Corpus Christi (14), and SMU (15).

"This will be a good test for us," noted McRaven. "It's on our home course and our kids tend to run pretty well on our home course. A lot of these teams have been here a few times before, so they know how this course runs as well."

Pittsburgh, with the men No. 8 and women No. 11, represent the Mid-Atlantic region. Mountain region programs include Idaho State (men 14), Northern Colorado (men 15), New Mexico State, and Texas Tech.

South region teams include Florida (men 10, women 6), Middle Tennessee (m 2, w 7), and Tennessee men (9). Schools from the West region include Arizona State (men 13), Cal Baptist (m 10, w 6), and Gonzaga women (11). Other schools in the field include Incarnate Word, Louisiana Tech, Sam Houston, TCU, Trinity, Tulane, and UTSA.

"We will see a lot of teams we haven't seen this season," said McRaven. "This will be our first meet where we race in a field of 300 runners per race. We have an opportunity to learn how to race in big fields. We want to see how we stack up against other teams.

"I've told our kids we are pretty good right now, but we still need to translate that from training into racing. The goal is to see where we are at and which teams we beat, rather than trying to beat specific teams. We don't really know how good each team is at this stage of the season, based on national or regional rankings, until teams start racing head to head."

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