The University of Texas at Austin Athletics
University of Texas
Texas Invitational
Cross Country hosts Texas Invitational on Friday
09.15.2016 | Track & Field / Cross Country
Longhorns ready for home meet at Hancock Golf Course
AUSTIN, Texas – Texas Cross Country opened the season with two dominating performances two weeks ago. This week the Longhorns will bring their top runners to the trails for the first time as they host the Texas Invitational at Hancock Golf Course on Friday night.
The lone home event of the cross country season is set to start at 6 p.m. at Hancock Golf Course with the women running a 3K. The men will follow shortly after with a 5K at 6:30. The Longhorns will play host to UTSA, UT Rio Grande Valley, Prairie View A&M and Texas Southern and Coach Brad Herbster is looking forward to getting support from the fans.
"Last year the two home meets we had were pretty packed. I think this one will have a really good crowd for what we're doing," Herbster said. "The competition will be good enough for what we're looking for in this point in the season, so we're really excited about having the group and getting the group ready to compete."
Both Texas teams are receiving votes in the latest USTFCCCA Coaches Poll. The women are just outside the official Top 30 as the leader among other teams receiving votes. The men have three teams ahead of them on that list.
Friday's race will be the first time Texas runs its top squad as a group of freshmen and sophomores ran at the SFA Lumberjack SLC Preview two weeks ago. Getting the chance to put their top runners together and show what Texas can do before heading into the more challenging portion of the schedule has senior Sandie Raines excited to run at home this week.
"I think for me a personal goal is to practice what I want to do at Notre Dame (in two weeks), which is to get out really hard," Raines said. "There's going to be some good competition there, some of the best in the nation, so I know I have to get out hard and maintain that, stay confident, stay relaxed in the middle, and then just finish competitively and hard. I'm using this meet as more like prep work for big meets like Notre Dame, Penn State, obviously Big 12's.
That prep work for later in the season comes in play for the men's team as well. Senior Nate Moore said this year's team is very different from last year and as the eldest Longhorn he has taken it upon himself to help mentally prepare the younger runners for what to expect at the home meet this Friday and throughout the season.
"I'm just kind of making sure their head is in the right place. It's always a big transition from high school competition to NCAA," Moore said. "Everybody is good. Everybody can lay it on you at some point in the race and it just kind of takes a lot more focus and you can't really let people get away from you in the race and expect to come back. You really have to be focused all the way through and put yourself in the race the whole way. I think that's something that high school kids aren't used to and so they kind of need to be more aware of that."
Beyond wanting to see his team come up with a victory on each side, Herbster said he wants to see good execution from his team by practicing a solid race strategy and keeping a tight group throughout the entire race.
Herbster and the Longhorns also hope to see lots of fans wearing Burnt Orange at the pre-race tailgate. He said Texas pole vaulter Parks McNeil has helped organize a team tailgate for the track and field team that he hopes will liven the atmosphere and bring even more fans to watch the race.
"Home meets are always fun, and having the tailgate is a big thing this year for us," Herbster said. "We can have the entire team out there, which will be close to 100 people at least, then you'll have just people walking by who want to check it out. It should be a pretty good event."
Admission to the meet is free for fans wanting to attend the Texas Invitational. The course will be a 1K loop and marked off with paint and flags.
Additional Quotes
Cross Country Coach Brad Herbster
On how important this first home, potentially more relaxed meet is for the freshmen on the team: It's really important. When we traveled two weeks ago [to the SFA meet], it's a four-hour trip there, four-hour trip back, all in one day and racing. This time, we're switching out lines almost because some of the people who raced at SFA will not race at this meet. But racing in front of a home crowd, they'll really get the feel for, "Ah, man, this is exciting." Because we are racing a lot of the freshmen here again and some of the upper classmen and sophomores who raced last week aren't racing this week. It should be a pretty good competition and it will get us ready for Notre Dame in two weeks.
On the opportunity to run an "A squad" with the veterans before a bigger meet at Notre Dame: It's really important even though it's a shorter distance than what we'll be running at Notre Dame, it's a great opportunity to just get on the uniform and race. Get that first race out of the way and just relax and do the work for the next two weeks and really get prepared to go out fast at Notre Dame and seal a win and have good team success.
On which runners may shine at this meet: A lot of people have been looking good. I think a lot of people are turning the corner. I think Robert Uhr looked pretty good early on, I think you've got a lot of leadership coming back, like Connor Hendrickson coming back; he's one of our leaders, a junior. He's finally starting to get in shape and I think he'll perform well. Spencer Dodds from Great Oak is doing a great job out at practice. He tied with Pedro [Nasta] at SFA so we expect big things from him. On the women's side, Sandie [Raines] being back in uniform will be big, Abby Guidry will be big, Meghan Lloyd will be good, Alex Cruz will be good. So, we're looking forward to getting a good group out there and seeing what they're capable of.
Senior Sandie Raines
On excitement of having a home meet: Yeah we're really excited. We only have one home meet this year and it's close to campus. I think we're trying to get a bigger home crowd and more support from the rest of the sports and team. So we're really excited, they're having a tailgate beforehand. It's not a big meet but it's a fun meet to start off the season and get us ready for how hard cross is going to be.
On what she likes about the team so far: I really like the energy and the competiveness. We have a lot of young girls. We're either seniors or freshman and sophomores. So there's a lot of competition but it's really fresh and it feels like we're going to do something big this year.
On the goals of this meet: Our race plan for this week for everyone in general is to have our second-fastest K be our first one and then our fastest K be our last one. So the middle we're just kind of settling in.
Senior Nate Moore
How the team is different from last year: It's a lot different for me because I'm the oldest guy on the team being a senior. We've brought in a really great class of freshmen. There is a lot of talent on the team. Just kind of some other guys that we were looking forward to having them last year but they got injured and didn't play out the same way. So there's just a lot of really great guys and a lot of depth on the team this year and I'm just excited to see what everybody can unleash, especially some of these freshmen guys.
Players Mentioned
