Wildcats set to run in North Carolina

ACU teams prepping to run at OSU, Arkansas

CARY, N.C. - The ACU men's and women's cross country teams will be back in action this weekend when they each run in the Great American Cross Country Championships at the SAS Soccer Park.

The meet, hosted by perennial Atlantic Coast Conference powerhouse North Carolina State, features some of the top teams in the east, including NC State, North Carolina and Duke.  North Carolina State has won four straight ACC men's team championships, and last year won the NCAA Division I District III team championship before finishing 16th at the NCAA Division I national championship meet.

Both teams will run early Saturday morning with the women's teams competing over 6000 meters and the men's teams over an 8000-meter course.

Both ACU teams got off to solid starts two weeks ago when they won their respective team championships at the ACU Cross Country Classic.  The men were led by individual champion Nicodemus Naimadu, while the women were led by senior Trina Cox, who finished second in the overall standings.

Naimadu -- the defending NCAA Division II individual national champion -- covered the four-mile Sherrod Park course in 20:43.75, barely edging out teammate Phillip Birgen, who was second in 20:43.96.  The Wildcats finished with 18 points and four of the top six runners in the race.

Cox, meanwhile, covered the women's three-mile course in 17:04.58 for second place, just ahead of teammate Olha Kryv'yak, who came in third in 17:44.76.

Saturday's race is a tune-up for next weekend's Cowboy Jamboree at Oklahoma State, which will be followed two weeks later by the Chile Pepper Festival at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Ark.