Oklahoma State University Athletics
OSU Cross Country Set For Season Opener
August 28, 2014 | Cowboy Cross Country & Track
STILLWATER, Okla. -
Oklahoma State cross country will travel to Tulsa, Okla., this weekend to compete at the Hurricane Festival on Saturday, Aug. 30, at Mohawk Park.
Follow The Meet
Fans can follow the action live on Twitter by following @run4okstate for updates. Final results will be published on www.okstate.com.
Meet Schedule
Oklahoma State will kick off the season at 8 a.m. on Saturday, as the Cowboys hit the starting line for the meet's opening event. After completing the four-mile course, the Cowgirls will begin their two-mile race, set to start at 8:35 a.m.
Hurricane Festival History
Both the men's and women's squads opened the 2013 season with a bang at last year's Hurricane Festival, as both teams swept their respective duels and placed four in the meet's top-ten finishers.
The Cowgirls were led by Adela Hofmannova, who took first in the women's two-mile race behind a time of 11:14. Also completing top-ten times were Gintare Zenkeviciute, Natalie Baker and Monica Lake, who finished in fifth, eighth and ninth, respectively.
On the men's side, the Cowboys nearly represented the competition's entire top five. Neal Smith won the race in 20:18, narrowly besting teammate David Osborn's second-place finish a mere four seconds later. Chad Noelle and Kevin Colon registered identical runs of 20:31, giving the duo the third and fourth-place spots at the event.
Coach Dave Smith – Meet Comments
On this weekend's season-opener:
“For the men's team, we'll probably run a lot of young guys who don't have much experience yet. We'll get to see where the redshirt freshmen are and how they've developed, and we'll get to start the process of finding out who is going to be in position to compete for the top seven that goes to the championships later on this year. This time of year is always exciting because we'll get to see something out the of redshirt freshmen who trained hard last year, but didn't run too many cross country races. It's exciting for them because they finally get to put a uniform on, which is what they came here to do. We'll go out, run hard and try to win the meet. We've won it the past few years, but we'll go out and try to win it again. On the women's side, we're running a group with a little more experience, mainly because we don't have enough bodies on the women's side that are ready to run cross country. We've got some injuries with some of our top girls, so they aren't quite ready to go, but we'll run a good group.”
On sending the team's youth to the meet:
“It's kind of a step in the process. If they run well here, they'll go to the Kentucky meet in two weeks. If they run well there, they'll run at the Cowboy Jamboree. Then, you look at their whole resume and body of work for the season. After that, you say, 'Which kind of guys deserve to run at Big 12s?' We have several guys who are locks, and we know, no matter how the season goes, that they're going to run at the Big 12 Championships. We get to run ten at the Big 12 meet, so we've still got four or five spots that will potentially be available. This weekend is an opportunity for them to start that resume and build toward that spot on the team.”
On names he expects to step up:
“We have a group of redshirt freshmen who call themselves the, 'Freshmen Elite,' which is a little nickname they've given themselves. It's a good group of guys. I want to see where Luis Martinez, Noah Gade, Anthoney Armstrong and Brigham Hedges are at. Some of them had some really good summers, and I'm impressed with the way they came back. I've seen a big difference. Luis, for sure, has taken a major step from where he was at this point last year. He scored at both indoors and outdoors, which is tough to do as a freshman. Noah Gade started making his progress by running well last spring. I'm excited to see what those two do in cross country. Anthoney Armstrong is a guy that has a lot of talent, and this will be his first time to run cross country for us. I'm excited to see where he is. “With the women, we're running kind of a mix-and-match, hodge-podge type of group. We aren't running Monika [Juodeskaite], or Natalja [Piliusina] or some of our talented newcomers, but everybody else will run. Gentare Zarankaite has come a long way from when she started last year. She had a great spring, and it looks like she has carried on with that development to become even better. Janelle Martinez is a girl who was running well for us earlier in her career, but she had some injury problems, so we'll get to see how she bounces back from that.
Oklahoma State In The Rankings
The Oklahoma State men's cross country team will begin the 2014 season as the No. 4 team in the nation, according to the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association preseason rankings released Tuesday.
The Cowboys received 319 votes in the poll, the most of any team in the Big 12 and the Midwest Region. The position comes one day after receiving the No. 1 preseason ranking in the region, and also marks Oklahoma State's seventh-consecutive preseason top-five selection dating back to 2008.
Trailing only Colorado, Northern Arizona and Oregon, respectively, the Pokes receive the honor in large part due to the squad winning its sixth-straight Big 12 Championship and a third-place finish at the 2013 NCAA Championships.
In the women's polls, Oklahoma State received 125 votes, giving them the No. 19 spot in the national rankings and the second-overall spot in the Midwest Region. Returning All-American Monika Juodeskaite and track standout Natalja Piliusina lead the way as the
Cowgirls looks to earn their first Big 12 Championship.
