University of Houston Athletics
Cross Country Gears Up for Elite Competition at Arkansas
10/14/2010 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country
Oct. 14, 2010
HOUSTON - The University of Houston cross country team will head to the 22nd Annual Chile Pepper Cross Country Festival on Saturday morning.
Held at the University of Arkansas' course, the Chile Pepper Cross Country Festival was created to bring together three Northwest Arkansas cross-country races under a single event. With this year's field full of nationally-ranked teams, the meet is now known for being one of the premier running events in America.
"Typically when we're making our schedule, we try to find a big meet that's similar to a (NCAA) regional championship," head coach Ryan Turner said. "We went to Disney, which was a big meet, but quality-wise it is about what we've faced in a lot of our competitions. This week, we'll not only get to run against a lot of conference schools, but a lot of regional schools, too. There are a lot of top programs from all across the nation. It's going to be the largest meet we compete in. It will definitely challenge us."
Six different Conference USA schools will line up against the Cougars on Saturday, including Tulsa who will bring a No. 21 USTFCCCA national ranking on both the men's and women's side. Memphis, SMU, Tulane, UAB and Southern Miss are all slated to run, as well. Aside from Tulsa, only Memphis and Tulane sponsor a men's team.
Aside from the C-USA competition the Cougars will face, the Chile Pepper Festival will also feature several teams in the USTFCCCA's national top-25 poll. Other heavy hitters include Indiana's men and women who hold No. 7 and No. 24 rankings, respectively. The Oklahoma men's team sits at No. 16 on the national poll. Both of the meet host teams are also on the poll. Arkansas' men are No. 6 while the women check in at No. 25.
"Just to be honest, this meet is going to be tougher than the (NCAA) regional championships are," Turner said. "It's going to be an eye-opening experience for our team to see what running against quality competition feels like. Some of our kids won't have the opportunity to compete in the National Championships, so this is the next closest thing you can get to it. There will be people at this meet who will race in this meet that will go to the NCAA Championships. It's good for our kids to see that's the direction we want our program heading." The Razorbacks hold the top spot on both the men's and women's side in the USTFCCCA South Central Regional poll. Houston is also a member of the South Central Region, with the Cougar men ranking No. 11 and the women at No. 13.
Houston's women will take on seven teams ranking above them in the South Central Region - without the help of Brandi Witte, as the junior will not be competing this weekend.
"It will be interesting to see what happens," Turner said. "Someone is going to have to step up on the girls side. She (Brandi) was our No. 1 runner at LSU and our No. 3 runner at the Disney meet, so we're losing one of our top guns."
The men will square off against five teams sitting above them on the regional poll, but will have all of its weapons to do so. Sophomore David Smith bested his junior teammate and team captain Nate Pineda for the first time in his career last Saturday at the Disney Cross Country Classic. Turner doesn't know if Pineda will reclaim his title as the team's top finisher, but is simply happy to know his men's team is challenging each other to constantly improve.
"You hope that when they get to the line that they've trained as well as they can and hope that they feel good that day," Turner said. "Nate's obviously extremely talented and running really well in practice, but everyone else is getting better, too. It gets to the point where Nate has to keep getting better or people are going to catch him, that's just natural when it comes to training. I don't know who's going to be our No. 1 guy, I just hope that we have five guys who run really fast."
For the second week in a row, the men will take the first race. Running the 10K, the Cougar men are set to race at 9:45 a.m., while the Cougar women will take off on their 5K at 10:30 a.m.
Players Mentioned
