Bearcats runners head to Minnesota

After taking last weekend off, the Northwest Missouri State cross country teams will resume competition Saturday at the Roy Griak Invitational Saturday in Minneapolis, Minn.

The meet is one of the largest of its kind in the nation and includes schools from Division I down to high school.

Northwest will run against an estimated 35 teams in the Division II race, many of which are Central Region opponents.

"It's going to pretty much define our region rankings for next week," said Northwest Missouri State head coach Scott Lorek. "We'll be able to see a lot of teams from the Northern Sun and a lot of teams from our conference. It will be a time to really go head-to-head."

The Bearcat men are coming off a fourth place finish at the Woody Greeno Invitational that boosted them into the national rankings at No. 30.

Ryan Darling led Northwest with an 11th place finish. Sophomore Drew Keefer and Nolan Zimmer also finished in the top 40. Lorek is looking for others to emerge at the bottom part of the lineup.

"There are three or four guys vying for the No. 5 spot" said Lorek. "I'm hoping one of those guys takes over this weekend."

Northwest's women's team slipped to No. 24 nationally and sixth in the region with a 10th place finish at the Woody Greeno Invitational.

The Bearcats ran that meet without their No. 1 runner, senior Brittany Poole. She is expected to return this weekend, but the Bearcats will still be short-handed.

Freshman Maci Hicks is being held out of this race with an injury that Lorek wants to make sure is healed in time for the MIAA and Central Region meets.

"I think it's going to affect us because it's one of our top runners, but we're still going to compete and beat a lot of teams," said Lorek. "In times like this, I'm excited to see how well we can do without a particular person because we're only going to get better when we add them back."