Cross Country Releases 2015 Schedule

NORMAN – Four regular season meets highlight the 2015 cross country schedule released today by Jim Van Hootegem, University of Oklahoma track and field/cross country head coach, and Joe Castiglione, vice president for intercollegiate athletics/director of athletics. OU will open the 2015 season on Tuesday, Sept. 1 in Stillwater, running the course that will host the Big 12 Championships on Oct. 31.

“It's an opportunity to get in a race in a low key environment,” said Jason Dunn, cross country associate head coach. “It's just a chance for us to get things started and it's a chance to get to see where people are coming off their summer training.”

The teams begin this season after a strong campaign in 2014. The Sooner men finished sixth at the NCAA Midwest Regional, just missing a trip to the NCAA Championships. That followed a second-place finish at the Big 12 Championships for the men. The OU women finished ninth at the regional after posting an all-time best team finish of fifth at the Big 12 championship.

“Our men's season finished on a disappointing note last year by not qualifying for nationals,” Dunn said. “We should've been there last year, but we didn't get it done. We have a chance to this year.

“All of the women have had a couple of years to develop and I think they're ready to take another step forward,” he continued.

OU will send men's and women's entries to three of the same regular season races before splitting up for the fourth regular season competition over the weekend of Oct. 16-17. Postseason competition opens on Oct 31 with the Big 12 meet to be run in Stillwater on the final Saturday of October. The NCAA Midwest Regional is scheduled for Nov. 13 in Lawrence, Kan., and the NCAA Championship is set for Nov. 21 back in Louisville.

After opening in Stillwater, the Sooners travel to Denton Sept. 12 for the North Texas Ken Garland Invite. The teams will head to Charlottesville, Va., to compete in the Virginia Panorama Farms Invite. Hosted by the University of Virginia, that meet is set for Sept. 26. It will be a homecoming for Dunn, who previously coached at Virginia and designed the course. The third-year Sooner coach hopes that the challenging course and the competitive field will bring benefits to the Sooners as the season progresses.

“It will be a good chance to face some teams from other regions,” Dunn said. “That's a big part of our schedule in cross country. We need to beat teams from other regions that have a chance to get to nationals from their region.

“Going to Charlottesville gives us a chance to compete on a very challenging course,” he added.

“Our conference and regional meets this year will be held on challenging courses so I didn't want to go to a course that's very flat.”

The men and women will compete in different meets the weekend of Oct. 16-17, the lone time they will compete separately this season. The men head to Madison, Wis., to compete in the Wisconsin adidas Invitational on Oct. 16 while women travel to Louisville, Ky., for the Pre-NCAA Invitational on Oct. 17

“Both of those meets are like 'pre-nationals' level meets with some very quality opponents and give us a good gauge of what we're up against when we get to the championship,” Dunn said.

The Wisconsin Invitational proved to be a successful meet for the Sooner men last season as they finished 17th against top-ranked competition and ahead of 19 other teams.

The Sooners are on pace to have another successful season as the men return several veterans and the women's team returns all of its runners. Those returnees include redshirt senior Brandon Doughty and junior Brittany Tretbar, both earned All-Midwest Regional and All-Big 12 honors last season. A pair of juniors, Jacob Burcham and Elena Arriaza, also return after earning All-Big 12 honors in 2014. Both rosters include seven redshirt or true freshmen as well as a several experienced runners.

A new place to open the season as the Sooners have opened 14 of the last 16 seasons 63 miles east of Stillwater in Tulsa will be the building block for the rest of what could be a very special Sooner season.