FAYETTEVILLE — The University of Arkansas women’s cross country team will try to continue demoralizing its SEC competition when the Razorbacks run Saturday at the Gans Creek Classic in Columbia, Mo.
Two weeks ago, the Razorbacks – defending national champions and winners of seven consecutive conference titles – had a perfect score of 15 in winning the SEC Preview in Baton Rouge.
Arkansas took the top five places with freshman Taylor Ewert winning the individual title followed by seniors Abby Gray and Logan Morris, junior Lauren Gregory and freshman Corie Smith.
Ole Miss, with all but one of its runners back from last year’s second-place SEC team, was second to Arkansas two weeks ago with 46 points followed by host LSU (96), Mississippi State (103) and Texas A&M (126).
The Razorbacks, who have reloaded after losing four All-Americans from last year’s team, are running against host Missouri, Texas A&M and Vanderbilt on Saturday.
“We’re at that point where I think our kids are just excited to see anybody in a different color uniform, because they see each other Monday through Friday,” Razorbacks Coach Lance Harter said. “They just want to get a chance to race people other than the challengers they face from their own teammates.”
Arkansas will have 17 runners going on Saturday, including the season debuts of transfers Krissy Gear from Furman, McKenzie Wilkes from Kansas and Gracie Hyde from the University of Central Arkansas.
“We’re excited that we have everybody on board,” Harter said. “I think that we’ll be formidable again this week.”
Harter said he didn’t expect a perfect score in the opening meet.
“The end result is the kids are so excited about the opportunity to get back to somewhat if you want to call it normalcy,” Harter said of having a cross country season amidst the coronavirus pandemic. “We’re getting back into a routine that all of us are used to.
“We’re all masked up and we’re all making sure we keep our distance. But when the gun goes off, the old memories come back pretty quick. Our kids did a great job representing Arkansas.”
Saturday’s race will be 6,000 meters after the SEC Preview was 5,000.
“We train basically to be prepared for 6,000,” Harter said. “We always prepare for the summit competition, and this year that happens to be 6,000 at the SEC meet. So I think our kids are very physically and mentally prepared for the ultimate challenge.”