Cards Ready for ACC Cross Country Championships

Saturday, October 14

LOUISVILLE, KY

All Day

University of Louisville

PRE NATIONALS

October 26, 2017 | Cross Country

Louisville prepares to host the league's best runners

By: Jake Stanley

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The University of Louisville men's and women's cross-country teams remain home this weekend for the 2017 Atlantic Coast Conference Cross Country Championships. The races will be held on Friday, Oct. 28 at E.P. "Tom" Sawyer Park, with the men's race starting at 10:03 a.m., followed by the women's run at 11:03 a.m. Live coverage of the championships will be available online at ACC Network Extra.

Louisville is hosting the ACC Championships for the first time in school history, joining the Adidas Pre-National Invitational on Oct. 14 and the upcoming NCAA Championships on Nov. 18 as part of a busy 2017 home campaign.

The Cards will look to follow up last season's strong performance in Cary, N.C. Led by Dorcas Wasike's eighth-place finish, the Cardinal women placed fourth in the field, their best finish as an ACC member. On the men's side, former All-American Edwin Kibichiy finished second individually, helping the Cards take seventh in the overall tally.

With the No. 5 regionally-ranked women's squad, Wasike returns this year with hopes of earning her fourth top-20 finish in as many runs. The sophomore from Kitale, Kenya has set personal-bests in her last two runs at Sawyer Park, posting a 14^th-place finish in the Greater Louisville Classic 5K and an 11^th-place standing at the Pre-Nationals 6K. Senior Mia Ross and sophomore Kassidy Manning are also looking to follow up personal records at Pre-Nationals with strong times in the ACC race. The Cards will face a tough challenge in No. 5 NC State, the meet's defending champions, as well as regionally-ranked squads from Virginia Tech, Syracuse, Duke and Virginia.

In the earlier men's race, redshirt freshman Albert Kosgei enters as one of top contenders, bringing in three top-10 finishes on the season. In his three 8K runs this season, Kosgei has shaved nearly a minute off his time each time, culminating in a fifth-place time of 24:08.5 at Pre-Nationals. Kosgei will try to stave off challenges from defending ACC champion Justyn Knight of Syracuse and Pre-Nationals runner-up Peter Seufer of Virginia Tech. Elsewhere, junior Daniel Fleace and freshman Ben Ewert seek to continue their season-long improvement and help test No. 4 Syracuse in the team competition.

Following Friday's race, the Cards will head to the NCAA Southeast Regional on Friday, Nov. 10 in Panorama Farms, Va. Qualified runners will head home for the NCAA Championships the following Saturday.