The ASU cross country team travels to Terre Haute, Ind. on Saturday for the NCAA Pre-National meet, an invitational that will give it a taste of the elite competition it will see again at the NCAA Championships.
“It’s one of the biggest meets of the year, and one that decides who goes to the NCAA meet,” ASU coach Louie Quintana said. “It’s going to be ultra-competitive.”
The men will compete in the 8K White Race against a stacked field of 36 teams. There are 10 teams from the nation’s top 30 in the men’s field, including No. 4 Colorado, No. 8 Portland, No. 13 NC State and No. 16 Oklahoma.
“I really only expect for us to improve on our performance from two weeks ago,” redshirt senior Ben Engelhardt said. “We just have to take another step in the direction of being the toughest team in the NCAA.”
The women, who will compete in the 40-team 6K White Race, also face the cream of the nation’s crop, with eight squads in the top 30. No. 5 Georgetown, No. 9 Colorado, No. 12 Stony Brook, and No. 17 Stanford are the top-ranked teams in the women’s field.
“[Our expectations] are to get at-large points,” junior Lindsay Prescott said, adding that the Sun Devils just need to simply “go out there and do work” in order to succeed.
Indeed, ASU’s Achilles heal thus far has proved to be their own mental focus. The team is heading to Indiana this weekend with a new mental attitude, ready to race uninhibited by their psyches and leave big-time programs in the dust.
“Practice has been going really, really well,” Quintana said. “We’ve really been able to progress our training. We’re going to go there; we’re going to race hard and try and get as many scalps as we can.”
While ASU will attempt to beat as many top-ranked teams as possible in order to garner at-large points for November’s NCAA Championships, the meet will also serve as a stepping stone towards where Sun Devil harriers hope to be in a few weeks.
“I’m not saying I think we should go out there and win,” Engelhardt said. “I really think that’s missing the point.”
To be the “toughest team in the NCAA” as Engelhardt desires, the Sun Devils must come out and race as hard and as effectively as they have in practice all season long, something Quintana said his harriers have failed to do in races thus far.
“We got too much stuff flowing through our mind,” Quintana said. “[I’ve been telling the team], ‘Let’s race wild; let’s race dumb.’”
ASU will take seven runners on both the men’s and women’s side to the meet. However, Quintana notes that his team’s talent is deeper than the just the select runners that are going to Pre-Nationals.
“Honestly, we’re really about nine or ten deep on both sides right now,” Quintana said. “I could’ve taken any of those number eight, nine, or 10 runners [to Pre-Nationals].”
Following Saturday’s meet, ASU will have two weeks to rest before heading to Seattle, Wash. for the Pac-10 Championships.
Reach the reporter at kyle.j.newman@asu.edu
