BATON ROUGE — The LSU men’s and women’s cross country teams return to action this Saturday when they host the SEC Championships at Highland Road Park.
The meet will get underway at 9 a.m. with the women’s 6K race. The men’s 8K run will follow at 10 a.m.
This season marks the first since 1993, and the fourth time in the championship’s history, that LSU has hosted the event.
“We’re looking forward to running this event on our home course,” said LSU cross country coach Mark Elliott. “Knowing the course as well as we do is obviously a pretty good advantage.”
The Tigers and Lady Tigers, who practice on the course each and every week, were both victorious on the course earlier this year when they hosted the LSU Tiger Cross Country Festival in September.
The competition on Saturday will be slightly stiffer as both the men’s and women’s fields contain some of the top competition in the country.
Arkansas, the winner of the last 15 consecutive men’s team titles, once again heads into the meet as the team favorite with a No. 6 national ranking. Florida and Alabama will be the Hogs likely challengers as they enter the competition with the No. 10 and No. 15 national rankings, respectively.
On the women’s side, Arkansas also paces the field with a No. 4 national ranking. They will be challenged by three-time defending champions and 15th-ranked Tennessee as well as No. 17 Florida and No. 20 Georgia.
LSU will be looking to improve on their finishes from a year ago when the men placed seventh and the women were 10th.
“I am pleased with the way we are competing right now,” said Elliott. “Obviously, I would like to go in there and win but at the same time I am a realist. But I do feel this team has trained well and is prepared and ready to go.”
To date, both the Tigers and Lady Tigers have faired well against conference competition in early season meets. Among five SEC schools at the Arkansas-hosted Chile Pepper Festival two weeks ago, the women finished second among league competition while the men were fourth.
“For us that is a very good indicator of where we stand conference-wise and that’s what is important right now,” said Elliott following the Chile Pepper outing.
Individually, the Tigers will look to senior Drew Haro to pace the squad. Haro, a New Orleans native, has been the Tigers’ top finisher in each of his three races and has posted LSU’s top 8K time this season (24:21.86).
The Lady Tigers should be led by juniors Rachael Graham and Megan Broussard. Graham has been LSU’s No. 1 runner in three of its four races this season and won the individual title on the Highland Road course at the LSU Tiger Festival earlier this year. Broussard paced the Lady Tigers at the Auburn Invitational and has been their No. 2 finisher in each of the other three races.
Following the SEC Championships, LSU will take a weekend off in preparation for the NCAA South Central Regional Championships which are scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 11, in Waco, Texas.