Nov. 10, 2006

MILWAUKEE - The Marquette women's and men's cross country teams travel to the Forrest Creason Golf Course in Bowling Green, Ohio, Saturday, for the NCAA Great Lakes Regional with hopes of earning a spot in the national championship race. The women's 6,000-meter race begins at 10 a.m., while the men start their 10,000-meter race at 11:15 a.m. The Golden Eagle women are in search of their seventh consecutive appearance in the NCAA Championship Meet.

"The regional meet and the BIG EAST meet are the most important for the entire season," said head coach David Uhrich. "We try and run our best each year at these meets and I think we are ready to do that again this year."

The top-two teams in the regional qualify for the national championship, as well as the top-four individual runners not on a qualifying team. Once all nine regional meets have been completed, the selection committee will select 13 additional teams and two individuals for at-large bids.

Last season, the women earned an at-large bid and placed 29th at the NCAA Championships.

"Having qualified for the NCAAs, we have an advantage knowing the effort it takes to advance," Uhrich said. "In the same sense, however, we have a pretty young team and are going in a little inexperienced. Even though it's going to be a little tougher, we absolutely still have advancing as our goal. If we really run like we can and other things happen at other regional meets, we still have a pretty good change to make it. Many of our runners may be young, but they have been to other big meets this season and handled it well."

In the 2005 regional qualifying meet in Bloomington, Ind., senior Michaela Courtney led Marquette to a sixth-place finish, crossing the line individually in 26th place. Heidi Lindeman (36th) and Cassie Peller (39th) also competed in the meet last season.

The men finished 20th in last season's NCAA Regional. Kyle Saginus was the Golden Eagles' top finisher, coming in 69th. Jeremy Williams (92nd), Drew Craig (108th) and Josh Pinter (140th) were the team's second-fourth runners in last season's meet.

"Last year we were such a young team and didn't get the result we wanted, finishing in 20th," said Uhrich. "We have become a much improved team over the year and it didn't really show at the BIG EAST meet because the conference has gotten better. I think this weekend we will show how much better we have gotten. If we have a good meet, we can place among the top-10 teams.

The course on the Forrest Creason Golf Course is fairly flat with one moderate hill that the women will attack once, and the men twice. The footing on the terrain is good and turns are fairly gentle. The current weather report is calling for a 30 percent chance of rain with temperatures in the low to mid 40s for the start of both the men's and women's races.