Cross Country Championships Set for Riverside this Weekend

Links associated with this release:
2009 Big West Cross Country Championships Page

Cal Poly's men's team is on the hunt for its 10th Big West cross country championship.

The wait is finally over for the nine Big West cross country squads as the 2009 edition of the league championship meet is on the docket this weekend. UC Riverside will serve as the host institution for the Championships, welcoming its league rivals to the Riverside Ops Course for the second consecutive season.

The Cal Poly men and Highlander women were the teams on top a year ago, and both teams were selected by the Big West coaches in the preseason to defend their titles.

Winning the Big West championship is nothing new to the Mustang men as Mark Conover's bunch has won the last six crowns and have won nine in the last 11 years. Cal Poly’s bid to extended its conference-record run will meet stiff opposition as Central Coast rival UC Santa Barbara and 2008 runner up UC Davis return the bulk of their teams and have had solid results to this point of the year. Also keep an eye on host UCR and Long Beach State, both of whom are ranked in the top 15 of the region.

The women's race promises to be a wide open affair as the Highlanders lost the bulk of the scoring which led them to the title in 2008. They will be challenged by a pack that includes UC Davis, the highest ranked Big West team in the region at #8, a resurgent Cal Poly club and another team on the rise, Cal State Fullerton. A tight race was forecasted back in the preseason coaches poll as the four teams were separated by just 16 points from first through fourth place.

The men's 8K race will be the first competition at 9 am, while the women will hold their 6K run at 9:45 am. All race results and interviews with the winning clubs will be posted on .