UKXC Begins Postseason Friday at SEC Championships

AUBURN, Ala. – The Kentucky men’s cross country teams begin postseason competition on Friday at the Southeastern Conference Championships, which will take place at Auburn’s Indian Pines Golf Course.

The women’s 6,000-meter race starts at 10 a.m. ET/9 a.m. CT (local), followed by the men’s 8k at 11 a.m. ET/10 CT (local).
 
The Indian Pines Golf Course features a mostly flat 2k loop.
 
The competition will be televised on a delay at 1 p.m. ET on November 4 on SEC Network.
 
The UK’s women’s team boast a team win at the Bluegrass Invitational on Sept. 8, and a fourth-place finish at the Louisville Classic. At their most recent meet, the Wildcats placed 15th at the Penn State National Open.

The UK men’s team started the season with three-straight runner-up finishes before finishing 11th at the Penn State National Open on Oct. 12.
 
Brennan Fields won the Bluegrass Invitational and placed second at the Louisville Classic.
 
Freshman Sophie Carrier led the UK women’s team at the first two meets of the year, winning the Bluegrass Invitational. Junior Caitlin Shepard has been the top Wildcat finisher the past two meets, including running a 5k PB 17:26.80 to finish 21st at the Louisville Classic.
 
The Kentucky men’s team enters the 2018 postseason ranked No. 14 in the Southeast Region, which is made up of every Division I team in the states of Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia.
 
Kentucky was predicted to finish fifth at the SEC Championships by conference coaches in an August poll.
 
The Kentucky men’s squad placed fourth at the SEC Championships in 2017.
 
The UK women’s team is up to No. 7 in the Southeast Region going into the postseason.
 
The UK women’s team finished sixth at SECs a year ago, and then 11th at Southeast Regionals two weeks later with now-graduated senior Katy Kunc having advanced to the NCAA Championships finals site where she finished 41st.
 
The UK women’s squad returned a pair of Wildcats from a year earlier – Madisyn Peeples and Caitlin Shepard. Eight freshmen have made their debuts in UK colors this autumn.
 
Shepard was UK’s No. 5 finisher at SECs last season.
 
League coaches picked the Wildcats to finish 11th at SECs in a preseason poll.

Six SEC cross country teams are ranked among the nation’s top-30 in the latest U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association NCAA Division I Cross Country National Coaches Poll. The Arkansas women are ranked fifth, while Georgia is No. 24 and Ole Miss is No. 26. The Arkansas and Ole Miss men are ranked Nos. 20 and 21, respectively, while Alabama is No. 30. The Florida women and Tennessee men are included among teams receiving votes.

Arkansas is the defending SEC men’s and women’s cross country champions. The Razorback men have won the last eight SEC crowns and 25 in the last 27 years. The Razorback women have won five consecutive SEC titles and 18 overall.

This will be the second cross country meet held at Indian Pines Golf Course this season. The Auburn Invitational took place at Indian Pines in September.
 
Kentucky will compete at the NCAA Southeast Regional, hosted by Winthrop in Rock Hill, S.C., on Nov. 9. The NCAA Championships will be Saturday, Nov. 17 in Madison, Wis., with the University of Wisconsin Badgers serving as host institution.
 
Cross country refresher
Points are scored in cross country corresponding to finishing place. The place of each of the top five finishers on each team are added up and the team with the lowest total wins. Placers outside a team’s top five cannot score so finishers on other teams that might finish behind a team’s No. 6 or No. 7 finisher can get a point total fewer than their overall place in the race.

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