The Virginia men's and women's cross country teams will be competing at the pre-nationals meet in Terre Haute, Ind., the same location of the NCAA Championships this weekend. This meet provides an opportunity for both teams to get an idea of what could potentially lay ahead of them Nov. 20.
"What the pre-nationals were intended for originally was to give teams an opportunity to see and get a feel for the course," Virginia coach Jason Dunn said. "With the women's course being slightly different this year in comparison to years past it will be good for us to get a feel for that."
This meet is also important for the Cavaliers because after this race there are only three more races for the Cavaliers to compete in before the NCAA Championship meet.
"It is important for both teams to do well every time we step out and race," Dunn said. "We have so few races that anytime we step out it is important. This meet provides us a unique opportunity to beat a bunch of teams from other regions, so hopefully we will get that done."
The course also provides potential challenges for the Cavaliers that they won't be able to experience at other times this year.
"The course we play on is really challenging," senior Andrew Dumm said. "It is important to get a good feel for the course now so we can have a good race plan come November for nationals."
This meet also provides an excellent opportunity for the Cavaliers to see how they stack up against the elite teams across the country. Up to 25 of the top 30 teams in the country will compete. In fact, there are so many teams there that there are actually two different races with around 35-40 teams in each race.
"It's a good preview of the kind of competition that we will see at nationals that we won't get a chance to see at our regional," Dumm said.
The Cavaliers have also had good practices and preparations leading up to this meet. This, along with their success at the Roy Girak Invitational Sept. 23, has the Cavaliers ready to compete at an even higher level.
"Everybody is doing well, healthy and we have had really good training," Dunn said. "It's gone as well as I might have hoped or expected. Ever since we raced at Minnesota it has been nothing but good training and we should be ready to take another step forward with both groups."
For the Cavaliers, this meet could be crucial, as it could allow them to qualify for nationals again. Dunn said they are hoping to beat teams from other regions that might have a high probability of qualifying for nationals outside of their own regions.
"By beating them during the regular season, it will help our teams be in a position to garner an at-large bid," he said. "Aside from wanting to go in and compete well and have a great experience, there are some teams that we will be racing against that could really help us advance to the national championships if we beat them on Saturday."
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