Oct. 11, 2001
ATLANTA — Fresh off wins at the Georgia Intercollegiate Championships, the Georgia Tech men’s and women’s cross country teams head to the NCAA Preview/Furman Invitational on Saturday, October 13. Action is slated to start at 10:45 a.m. and will take place on the Furman Cross Country Course, which will also host this year’s NCAA Championships.
“The NCAA Preview has become, over the couple of years, the meet to go to,” said head coach Alan Drosky. “People from all over the country are going to be there. It’s a little unique this year in that there are so many people coming, and the course cannot handle that many teams at one time, so they’re dividing it into two evenly competitive fields.”
With the large field, the meet will be split into two separate races for both men and women. Tech’s women will compete in the NCAA Preview Women’s Purple 6K which begins at 10:45 a.m., while the men are slated for the NCAA Preview Men’s Gold 8K at 12:35 p.m.
The Yellow Jackets’ women’s squad will face a challenging field that includes 12 teams that are either ranked or received votes in the latest national rankings. In addition to top-ranked Colorado, the women will face Atlantic Coast Conference foes No. 8 North Carolina and Duke.
“On the women’s side, I want us to improve on what we did at the Roy Griak Invitational in Minnesota,” said head coach Alan Drosky. “I want Renee Metivier to continue to race like she is, but the people behind Renee need to start closing that gap a little bit. There can’t be a two-minute gap between our first and fifth runner.”
The women’s team finished 14th out of 32 teams at the Griak meet, which featured a field that included 12 ranked teams. Metivier placed seventh individually out of 300 runners.
In the Men’s Gold 8K, Tech will face 12 teams that are either ranked or received votes in the latest men’s national rankings. Colorado, who also has the top-ranked men’s squad, is in this field. The Jackets will also race against ACC rivals Clemson, Duke, Florida State, North Carolina and Wake Forest.
“As for the men, we’ll be closer to having our full team there at this meet than we have all season,” Drosky added. “The only people that won’t be racing are Brendon Mahoney and Joe Stegall. They’ll continue getting ready for the conference meet. So everyone else will be running, and we’re coming off a pretty good race at the Georgia Intercollegiate. I’m looking for them to continue to building on the progress they’ve been making.”
With most of the ACC schools will be at this meet, so Tech will get a good look at where it stands entering the 2001 ACC Cross Country Championships. The league meet will be the Jackets next action and is slated for Saturday, October 27, at Clemson, S.C.
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