Florida’s cross country teams will set out on a mission this weekend as they head to the Brook’s Pre-NCAA Invitational in Terre Haute, Ind., hosted by Indiana State University. With three meets already under their belt and nearly half the season behind them, the Gators will look to the Pre-NCAA meet as a chance to solidify lineups for the cross country postseason.
This weekend, UF will amp up its lineup to plug in several key postseason contenders at a trial run on the 2010 NCAA Championship course, the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course in Terre Haute. A total of 19 men’s and 17 women’s teams ranked in the USTFCCCA national coaches’ poll are slated to participate at the meet.
Flotrack.org will air LIVE streaming coverage of Saturday’s Brooks Pre-National Invitational. Coverage is slated to begin LIVE on Saturday morning at 10:30 a.m., ET. Until the live window begins, Flotrack will be streaming highlights from the 2009 races.
Florida, who reserved the top portion of its No. 30 men’s and No. 27 women’s lineups this past weekend for the Pre-NCAA Invite, sent several Gator runners from both the men’s and women’s teams, all potential SEC Championship contenders, to Tallahassee Oct. 8 to fight for the final spots in the 10-person SEC race.
The Gators showed evolving talent and potential at the top-25 saturated Wisconsin adidas Invitational Oct. 2, its highest profile race of the season thus far, a preview of the Florida postseason potential. On the women’s side, senior women’s runner Charlotte Browning (Chichester, England) led the then-No. 7 Gators to 195 team points, winning the women’s 6K ahead of 201 other athletes in 20:13.4, just one second shy of a career-best, topping 2009 NCAA runner-up Kendra Schaaf (North Carolina) in the process. Browning ran the fourth-fastest time in UF history in the 6K race, tallying her seventh top 10 cross country finish. Two Gators women’s runners set personal-best 6K marks, while three freshmen ran their first-ever collegiate 6K races. Florida scored the following places: 1st, 33rd, 45th, 47th and 69th at a meet that featured five other top 25 programs and finished seventh of 20 teams competing.
Florida’s women will be competing in just their second 6K race of the season in Indiana, after running a 6K at the adidas Invite and 5Ks at both the Mountain Dew and FSU Invitationals in Gainesville and Tallahassee, respectively.
On the men’s side, several promising races have shed light on an improving men’s team. At the FSU Invitational, the Gators used an 8K victory and an Apalachee Regional Park course record from Alex Schanen (Jacksonville Beach, Fla.) to tally a second-place finish in Tallahassee. The mark was a career-best for the Gator sophomore.
Florida’s men’s team also had an impressive showing at the adidas Invite, where the then-unranked Florida men’s cross country team placed seventh (of 21) at the meet, which featured eight top-25 teams. Florida placed ahead of No. 15 Michigan, No. 20 Providence and No. 24 Georgetown. Newcomer Dumisane Hlaselo (South Africa) was Florida’s first finisher in Madison, establishing his first mark as a Gator in the 8K (23:45.6), which was good enough to jump into the Florida record book as the fourth-fastest 8K in Gator cross country history. Florida tallied a combined 217 points and scored according to the following places: 7th, 26th, 59th, 62nd and 63rd. UF freshman Matt Mizereck (Tallahassee, Fla.) turned in a stellar performance, clocking a season and UF career-best 24:32.6 as the third Gator to finish. Mizereck was additionally the second-highest male freshman finisher out of 212 athletes, while seven of the eight Gator participants clocked collegiate personal-best marks at the nationally renowned competition.
Florida opened the season with victories in both the men’s and women’s competitions at the lone home event of the season, the 2010 Mountain Dew Invitational.
