Cross Country Opens Season with WFU Relays
8/28/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Cross Country
Aug. 28, 2008
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - The Wake Forest men's and women's cross country teams open the 2008 season with the Wake Forest Relays this Friday at 5 p.m. Along with hosting the WFU Relays, the season schedule includes meets at North Carolina, Penn State and Virginia Tech. On Nov. 15, Wake Forest will host its first-ever NCAA cross country event at Tanglewood Park in Clemmons, N.C., with at least 38 teams slated to participate.
Expectations are high coming into the season for both teams. After concluding last year with an eighth-place finish at the NCAA Southeast Regionals in Louisville, Ky., the women's team enters this season with a young, talented team eager to show why Wake Forest has advanced to the NCAA Championships seven of the past eight years.
"The women's team is excited and hungry to face the obstacles and challenges they know are ahead of them this season," head coach Annie Bennett said. "The women are eager to return to being a feared team at both the conference and national levels. We're starting the year with the deepest quality of runners that we have had since the 2002 season and strong leadership throughout the team."
On the men's side, the team returns a core group of runners from last season's squad that finished ninth at the NCAA Southeast Regionals. The team welcomes a group of newcomers that is expected to immediately contribute.
"(Sophomore) Greg Billington is coming off a great cross country season and is even fitter and stronger this year. He joins a tough group of freshmen who will not have the luxury of slowly getting up to speed due to our immediate need of adding depth. The freshmen are quickly figuring out the quality of work needed to race at this level, and we believe in them," said Bennett. "The team will round into shape at the right time and we feel great about our runners and their capabilities."
On Friday, the Wake Forest Relays will feature five schools, including Duke, Elon, High Point and Wingate. Each school will have teams of two runners, with an individual student-athlete responsible for racing two nonconsecutive legs of the event. The women's team distance for each pair will total 10 kilometers, or four 2.5-kilometer legs. A men's pair must complete 14 kilometers, or four 3.5-kilometer legs. Each school's top three pairs are counted toward the team's final score for this season-opening meet.
The women's race will commence at 5 p.m. with the men's race following at 5:45 p.m. Fans are encouraged to watch both races from the Cross Country Trail located beside the Water Tower Fields on Wake Forest's campus. Admission is free.
-WakeForestSports.com-
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