BATON ROUGE — The LSU women’s cross country team will face a strong challenge on Saturday, as the Lady Tigers travel to the Auburn Invitational at Indian Pines Golf Course.
With a 10-kilometer race at defending NCAA champion Arkansas’ course next weekend, the Tigers will not run a full squad, opting to use just three runners this weekend while resting their top athletes.
“I’m resting my men’s team this weekend because of the length of the race the following weekend,” said LSU coach Mark Elliott. “We’ll be running a 10k race at Arkansas next weekend and with the SEC Championships just over three weeks away and the NCAA Regional meet shortly after, I don’t want to run my guys into the ground and have them peak too early.
“On the women’s side, the distance is only 5k, so it makes a significant difference. This is a very good test for them and an opportunity to step it up a little bit with the conference meet around the corner.”
The women will run at 9 a.m., with the men to follow at 10 a.m.
SEC teams on hand this weekend in addition to LSU and Auburn include Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia and Mississippi State.
A year ago the Lady Tigers finished fifth out of 30 teams at the Auburn Invitational. Only one of the Lady Tigers’ top five finishers from last year, Susanne Strunz, will compete this weekend however.
Following the Auburn Invitational, both squads head to Fayetteville, Ark., for the Chilli Pepper Invitational in each team’s final outing before the SEC Championships.