Oct. 16, 2015
Meet Information | Season Stats | Schedule
SPRINGFIELD - The Missouri State cross country team heads to Little Rock, Ark. to compete in its final race of the regular season on Saturday at the Little Rock Invitational.
MSU's head cross country coach Jordan Fife is excited for the team to compete in Little Rock. Of the runners that competed there last year, most of the team posted personal bests at the Little Rock Invitational, including Jessica Allen (18:20.70) and Caitlyn Beasley (22:16.60). The rest of the Bears that competed in last year's race - Cindy Forde, Kaitlyn Cravens, Tenaly Smith, and Savannah Beaver - have broken their previous personal bests this season.
"Our training has continued to progress and we're looking forward to another opportunity to prove that," said Fife. "We're set up for favorable race conditions yet again so we plan to take full advantage of that on a course that we saw nearly all of our team run the best race of their seasons last year. The ladies feel good about what they were able to accomplish there last year."
This will be MSU's fourth and final meet of the 2015 regular season. The 5-kilometer race will be held at the Rebsamen Golf Course. The course for the meet is fairly flat with a few rolling hills.
"This will be a smaller meet in terms of total number of athletes so it should be easier for us to find our teammates during the race and work together throughout, similar to how we will race at the conference championships in two weeks," Fife said.
The last two meets, senior Forde has had an impressive finish for the Bears, leading the Missouri State pack at the 27th Annual Chile Pepper Festival two weeks ago with a time of 17:42.46 to finish 52nd in a field of 436 runners. Forde's time broke her personal best of 18:18.95 that she recorded at the Missouri Southern Stampede earlier this season.
MSU's Beaver (18:45.23), Cravens (19:06.28), and Alyson Jones (19:31.60) joined Forde by picking up personal bests of their own at the Chile Pepper Festival.
After Saturday's race, the Bears will continue their training to prepare for the Missouri Valley Conference Championship in Evansville, Ind. on Oct. 31 at 11 a.m. Following the MVC Championships will be the NCAA Midwest Region on Friday, Nov. 13 at the Rim Rock Farm in Lawrence, Kan.
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