From The Coach: Mark Stanforth
10/24/2001 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country
Oct. 17, 2001
It's the time during the season when we should start to show progress as a team and this past weekend was good in that regard.
The highlight was a third place finish by the men at the Pre-NCAA meet, a competition in which they beat six teams which were ranked in the top 20 nationally. The result is that our men are now ranked ninth which is recognition well earned. We need to continue to improve so that we can go to the NCAA meet and show that we are a top 10 team.
Our women's team backed up their performance at Minnesota with another solid showing at the Pre-NCAA meet. If you analyze the performances of the 105 Division I teams that ran at Furman, our women were between the 40th and 45th best team. When you add in the fact that 20 of the top 25 teams in the country were there, the conclusion I draw is that we're getting better and that we'll be a top 30 or 40 team before long.
We're looking forward to the Mountain West Conference meet next week as we enter the championship portion of our season. BYU and Colorado State have both their men's and women's teams ranked in the top 20 so the conference is very competitive which is the way that we want it. -- Mark Stanforth
