The Mississippi State cross country teams will head to Baton Rouge, La., this Saturday to compete in the Southeastern Conference Championships.
MSU’s women’s team has now moved up to fifth in the South Region standings. Their main goal is to finish in the top three in the championships.
“We look forward to facing Arkansas especially,” women’s head coach Al Schmidt said. “They are ranked fourth nationally.”
The women’s team also looks forward to facing Georgia, Tennessee and Florida, all of whom are ranked ahead of them.
Schmidt looks forward to his top six girls-Jennifer McPherson, Michelle Corrigan, Liz Grube, Annie Falor, Mina Thorstenson and Nicole Rossetti-facing the competition.
“We’ve ran full mile trials this past weekend, and Jennifer McPherson set a course record,” Schmidt said. “I feel really good about the way we ran, and our top five ran very fast.”
Men’s head coach Steve Dudley and the men’s team head into the SEC Championships, having finished 13th at their previous meet at Arkansas.
They look to improve drastically from their performance at the Arkansas meet and are hoping for a top six at the meet.
“We have not raced to our potential yet,” Dudley said. “We haven’t raced the way we trained.”
The men’s team also looks forward to facing Arkansas, which has won the SEC Championships many times before.
“We really want to beat everybody,” Dudley said. “There’s no clear-cut rival because you can’t win a championship with focusing on one team.”
Dudley plans to bring nine runners with him to the SEC Championships: Travis McKay, Ashenafi Arega, Wade Martin, Jonathan Rono, Daniel Simpkins, Brandon Smith, Robert Scribner, Pad Judd and Philip Moore.
Dudley’s men’s team runs at 9 a.m., and Schmidt’s women’s team runs at 10 a.m. on Saturday.