UK Cross Country to Serve as Host for 2018 Bluegrass Invitational

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Kentucky will be the host collegiate institution for the 2018 Bluegrass Cross Country Invitational to be run Saturday at Masterson Station Park in the northwestern part of Lexington off Leestown Road.

The men’s 8,000-meter race is scheduled to begin at 9:30 a.m. with the women’s 5k slated for a 10:10 a.m. start.

The start line will be located on the hill moving down toward the soccer fields. The finish lines will be located near the lower park soccer fields, with parking located on the sloping fields above.
 
The course is 100 percent grass over rolling fields typical of central Kentucky. Masterson Station Park will be host site for the 2019 Southeastern Conference Championships and 2021 NCAA Southeast Regional.

Kentucky, Ohio University and Thomas More College make up the collegiate field.
 

High school races will follow the collegiate competitions.

Saturday’s competition will mark UK’s second meet of the 2018 season. The men’s team finished second with 77 points, 30 behind first-place Dayton to start the season last Saturday at the 5,000-meter NKU Queen City Invitational.
 
The UK women’s team placed fifth with 93 points. Ohio State won the women’s team competition with 68 points.
 
The Kentucky men’s cross country team swept the Southeastern Conference’ first round of weekly awards on Tuesday. Senior Kendall Muhammad was named SEC Runner of the Week and Trevor Warren earned Freshman of the Week honors after his debut performance last Saturday.

Muhammad was the Wildcats’ top finisher in a second-place team performance at the season-opening Queen City Invitational on Saturday. The senior placed fifth overall with a 5k time of 15:31.05, his best – and only collegiate race to date at that distance. His time was the SEC leading 5k.

Warren was the team’s No. 3 finisher at the season-opening Queen City Invitational, where the team finished second. His top-25 time of 15:50.70 was tops by a SEC freshman for the opening cross country weekend of the season over 5k. The meet included 178 participants.

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.
 
2018 outlook 
The UK women’s team has been ranked No. 13 in the Southeast Region, which is made up of every Division I team in the states of Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, to begin the 2018 campaign.
 
The Wildcats 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 for Saturday returns a pair of Wildcats from a year earlier – Madisyn Peeples and Caitlin Shepard. Eight freshman made their debut in UK colors last Saturday.
 
Shepard was UK’s No. 5 finisher at SECs last season.
 
The Kentucky men’s team enters the 2018 season ranked No. 9 in the Southeast Region,
The UK men’s team finished eight at the NCAA Southeast Regional Championships a season ago.
 
Kentucky has been predicted to finish fifth at the SEC Championships, to be held at Auburn in October, by conference coaches.
 
League coaches picked the Wildcats to finish 11th at SECs in a preseason poll.
 
UK has not qualified for the NCAA Championships as a team since the women’s squad did so in 2008. The Kentucky men’s team last made NCAAs in 2003 – placing 28th with 642 points.

In order to be eligible to participate in the championships, teams and individuals qualify in their respective NCAA regional competitions.
 
Thirty-one teams are selected to participate in each championship. The top two, seven-person teams automatically qualify from each of the nine regions, for a total of 18 teams. Thirteen additional teams were selected at-large.
 
Thirty-eight individuals are selected to participate in each championship through an automatic qualifier and at-large selection process. All individual qualifiers finish in the top 25 in their regions.

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For the most in-depth coverage of the UK cross country and track and field program follow the @KentuckyTrack social media channels on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook as well as on UKathletics.com.