BATON ROUGE — A berth to the national championships will be on the line Saturday when the LSU men’s and women’s cross county teams travel to Waco, Texas for the NCAA South Central Regional Championships.
The meet will be held at the Cottonwood Creek Golf Course with action beginning at 10 a.m. with the women’s 6K race. The men’s 10K run will follow at 11:15 a.m.
The top-two teams from both the men’s and women’s races will earn automatic bids to the NCAA Championships to be held in Terra Haute, Ind., Nov. 22. In addition, 13 teams from around the country will be selected at to compete at the championships on an at-large basis.
“I feel that if the men perform well and run like they have all year long that they have a realistic shot at advancing to the national meet,” said LSU cross country coach Mark Elliott.
The men enter the meet ranked fourth in the South Central region behind defending champion Arkansas, Texas and Rice. The Tigers have lost to Arkansas in each of their two meetings this season, but finished just seven points behind Rice at the Chile Pepper Invitational earlier this year. They have not run with Texas yet this season.
LSU will lean on senior Jimmy Wiggins and junior Patrick Gavin to anchor the team this weekend. Wiggins has been the Tigers’ top finisher in three meets this season, while Gavin has paced the squad in the other two.
On the women’s side, seniors Katie Denton and Ruth Nanyinza are again expected to the lead the way for the Lady Tiger squad.
“The women are doing much better this season and enter the meet ranked higher in the region then they have been in the past,” said Elliott. “I’m hoping that Katie and Ruth will run well and be considered for an at-large bid as individuals.”
Katie has been LSU’s top finisher in three races this season. Nanyinza has paced the Lady Tigers in the team’s other two races and owns LSU best 6K time of the season (21:51.42).