Wednesday, October 26, 2011

What's Ahead: The Drake women's cross country squad will travel to Terre Haute, Ind., to compete in the 2011 State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Cross Championships on Sunday (Oct. 30). Start time for the 5,000-meter race at the LaVern Gibson Championship Course is at 10:30 a.m. CT.

Bulldogs Picked Eighth In Pre-Meet Poll: Drake was picked to finish eighth at the 2011 State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Cross Country Championship according to the pre-meet coaches poll released on Tuesday (Oct. 25).

Wichita State earned the top spot with 97 points and seven first-place votes. The Redbirds of Illinois State were pegged to finish second with 88 points and two first-place votes.

Missouri State and Southern Illinois finished third and fourth with 69 and 67 points, respectively. Host Indiana State received fifth place garnering 62 points and a lone first-place vote, while Bradley was sixth with 61 points.

UNI edged out Drake for the seventh slot with 34 points. The Bulldogs finished with 30 points and were followed by Evansville (24) and Creighton (18).

Last Time Out: The Bulldogs concluded their regular season at the Bradley Classic with a 13th-place finish on Oct. 14.

Leading the Bulldog charge was freshman Mariel Fulton (Louisville, Colo.) who ran the 6,000-meter course held at the Newman Golf Course in 22:32.07 to finish in 46th-place. Senior Kirsten Lake (Parker, Colo.) was close behind crossing the line in 22:46.74 to earn 59th-place.

The freshmen tandem of Krista Maguire (Wausau, Wis.) and Melissa Parks (Norfolk, Neb.) were 99th (23:25.15) and 100th (23:27.85), respectively. Sophomore Erin Poss (Antioch, Ill.) rounded out the scoring for the Bulldogs with a 106th-place showing (23:30.95).

Illinois State's Krista Deceault won the individual title with a time of 20:56.15, while Missouri won the team title with 65 points. Two-hundred thirty runners from 21 different schools participated in the event.

A Year Ago: Drake's Casey McDermott earned All-Missouri Valley Conference honors for the second straight year by placing 10th in the State Farm Missouri Valley Conference Women's Cross Country Championship in Augusta, Kan.

McDermott covered the 5,000-meter course in 17 minutes 52.11 seconds.

Drake finished seventh in the meet, tallying 149 points. Host Wichita State captured the team title with 54 points.

Tara Scieszinski was 32nd in 18:52.85, just clipping senior teammate Meredith Bell who was 33rd in 18:53.88.

Katie Coomer was 37th in 18:59.47 while freshman Erin Poss (Antoich, Ill.) was 39th in 19:02.46.

NCAA Midwest Regional Prize Opportunities: Both the men's and women's cross country teams will compete at the NCAA Midwest Regional Championship hosted by Northern Illinois University on Nov. 12.

Fans have the opportunity to enter two social media contests to win prizes. Twitter followers have the chance to win prizes by tweeting the hashtag #NIURegional. Bulldog fans have the opportunity to tweet about the Drake cross country teams and other details about the event.

Also, Facebook users have a chance to win prizes by visiting the Facebook event page for the NCAA Regional Cross Country Championship. Fans can simply visit the Facebook page and click "Attending" for the event. 

Each Thursday leading up to the regional, one Twitter user and one Facebook user will be selected to win free admission, free VIP parking and NCAA Championship apparel. 

Up Next: The Bulldogs will compete at the NCAA Midwest Regional Championship on Nov. 12 in DeKalb, Ill. Drake will compete against 32 other schools at the NIU North 40 course.