BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s and women’s cross country teams return to action this Saturday when they travel to Auburn, Ala., for the 14th annual Auburn Invitational.
The meet, which will be held at the Indian Pines Golf Course, is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. with the women’s 5K run. The men’s 8K race will follow at 10:15 a.m.
The field will be the biggest LSU has faced this season as 50 teams (24 men’s, 26 women’s) are slated to compete.
The Tigers and Lady Tigers will get their first peek at some of the SEC competition this season as host-Auburn, Georgia, Ole Miss and South Carolina will all run. Other teams of note include Iowa, Miami and New Mexico State.
LSU will be looking to improve on its finishes from this meet a year ago, when the men placed fifth and the women were 13th. Both squads are coming off first-place showings at last week’s LSU Tiger Festival.
Individually, the Tigers will look to senior Drew Haro to pace the men’s squad. Haro finished fifth at the Tiger Festival, running the 8K course in a LSU season-best 27:18.41.
On the women’s side, junior Rachael Graham is expected to lead the Lady Tigers’ once again this weekend. Graham, LSU’s top finisher in each of its first two races, has posted two top-10 finishes, winning the Tiger Festival and placing ninth at the season-opening Lobo Invitational.
Following the Auburn meet, LSU will take the next weekend off before returning to competition at the Chile Pepper Festival in Fayetteville, Ark., on Oct. 14.