ASU men’s cross country team will send its best harriers to South Bend, Ind. on Friday for the 55th running of the Notre Dame Invitational, a chance for the talented men to challenge nearly a third of the nation’s top 30 teams.
Meanwhile, the women and the remainder of the men’s squad will compete in the ASU Desert Twilight Invitational in Mesa.
The No. 18 men’s team (No. 4 regionally) anticipates its hard work in practice will pay off Friday at Notre Dame’s on-campus golf course. The men are making their second appearance in the meet after finishing third overall last year.
ASU will toe the line at 3 p.m. PT for the blue division race, lining up against the likes of No. 3 Oregon, No. 5 Alabama, No. 14 Villanova, No. 16 New Mexico, No. 21 Florida State, No. 27 Butler, and No. 30 UCLA.
The Sun Devils remain confident, however, that they will be able to hang with the best in a talented field of 20 teams.
“We feel like on a good day, we can compete with any of [the top schools],” redshirt sophomore Darius Terry said.
Early season successes, coupled with a firm belief in “the guy next to you,” are contributing factors to the men’s high confidence right now.
“We have a real interchangeable group,” redshirt junior Dylan Hatcher said, “There’s not one defined top guy. In the four years I’ve been here, I’ve never seen a group as solid as we are.”
Hatcher noted that the depth of contributors on the men’s side is a key strength.
“If someone slips up and has a bad day, then it’s not really going to matter because there’s going to be another person right there anyway [to pick up the slack],” Hatcher said.
ASU coach Louie Quintana also believes in the men’s enormous potential, something that he hopes will be revealed at Friday’s meet.
“The only thing that will prevent us from running well is us,” Quintana said. “All of our mental energies need to be on having a good race and being able to execute.”
For the ASU Desert Twilight Invitational, the Sun Devils’ only home meet of the season, the team is looking for a chance to improve.
“We’ll probably only run one or maybe two of the girls that raced last weekend,” Quintana said. “Expectations are for them to continue to get better and for us to compete for the team title, certainly.”
The women’s team is scheduled to start racing at 6:30 p.m. and the men’s at 6:45 p.m. Arizona, Northern Arizona, the ASU Running Club, Grand Canyon and Navajo Technical are other teams slated to compete.
It will be the 25th running of the ASU Invitational but only the second year in a row that the event will be run in conjunction with the Desert Twilight Cross Country Festival.
The festival will hold 17 races, including 14 high school, two collegiate and one community race, The Desert Twilight Community 5k Run, which is set to start at 7:30 p.m.
Though the women, ranked No. 5 regionally, might be disappointed with last week’s performance in Minnesota, Quintana said he remains confident in their ability going forward.
“When you’re training well, it’s inevitable that you’re eventually going to race well,” Quintana said.
After this weekend, the Sun Devils travel to Terre Haute, Ind. on Oct. 16 to compete in the NCAA Pre-National Meet.
Reach the reporter at kyle.j.newman@asu.edu
