FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. ? The University of Kentucky cross country teams will compete in the Southeastern Conference cross country meet hosted by the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Ark this Saturday. The women will compete in a 6k race beginning at 9 a.m. CT at the Agri Park cross country course and the men will run 8k starting at 10 a.m.
The UK women look to improve on their 2003 fourth-place finish at the SEC conference meet. Returning for the Cats are Leah Kerstetter who was third across the finish line for Kentucky, Candace Leep, Emily King and Allison Grace. This year?s squad also includes, senior Beth Heimann, freshman Lavera Morris, Megan Brunick and Andrea Brown.
The Cats look to Grace to lead after strong finishes in the last two meets. Grace finished 15th at Penn State National Invitational and 17th at the Stanford Invitational. Grace has two years of SEC Championship experience under her belt, finishing 15th in 2002 to earn All-SEC honors and she did not finish the race with 800 meters left due to heat last year.
?Ali has run well the past two years,? UK head coach Don Weber said. ?Last year she fell out with 800 meters to go, but she ran really well at Penn State a couple of weeks ago. She was very confident and she thought that she could have done better, so I think her mindset going into the race is very good.?
In 2003 the Cats were led by then senior, Thomas Morgan, who captured the individual title and led the team to a fifth place finish at the SEC meet. John Richardson is the only returning runner who scored for Kentucky in 2003.
Saturday Richardson will be joined by freshman Stephan Smith, Andre Silva, Andrew Thompson, Chris Millisor, Chris Land and Jonathan Thomas.Richardson and Silva both recorded strong finishes this season at the Penn State National Invitational and Stanford Invitational.
?We are expecting John to be our front runner and to some degree all of our other runners will run off of him. It is important that he puts us in the right position,? said Weber. ?With one year experience he should be going to this race with a little more confidence, I think that he will have a good race.?
-UK-
