BATON ROUGE — LSU’s men’s and women’s cross country teams will kick off the 2002 season Friday, Sept. 6 at the Tulane Invitational in New Orleans.
The meet will take place at Lake Oaks Park with action beginning at 5 p.m. with the women’s two-mile race. The men’s three-mile run will immediately follow the women’s contest at approximately 5:30 p.m.
Eight schools will comprise the field Friday as Birmingham Southern, Loyola, LSU, University of Mobile, New Orleans, and Southern Miss, Tulane and Xaxier will each have full men’s and women’s teams present.
LSU is coming off a 2001 season that saw the men’s and women’s teams finish seventh and eighth, respectively at the SEC Championships and then ninth and 11th at the NCAA South Central Regional.
The men will be without 2001 all-conference and all-region selection Dayile Likhaya this season and will look to sophomore Jimmy Wiggins to pace the Tiger squad. Wiggins was LSU’s second finisher at both the SEC Championships and the NCAA Regionals during his freshman campaign.
The Lady Tigers also lose an all-region and all-conference selection from 2001 in Susanne Strunz. Senior Marian Burnett and sophomore Katie Denton will be expected to takeover the Lady Tiger reigns. Burnett was LSU’s second finisher at the 2002 NCAA Regionals, while Denton was among the Lady Tigers’ top-three runners at both the conference and regional meet.
Following the Tulane Invitational, the Tigers will travel to Albuquerque, N.M. Sat., Sept. 14 for the UNM Lobo Invitational before returning home for their own LSU Invitational Sat., Sept. 28.