BYU Travels to Oregon Invitational

PROVO -- Both the men's and women's cross country teams will travel to the Bill Dellinger Invitational on Friday Sept. 29. Hosting its first home meet since 1998, the University of Oregon looks forward to welcoming 24 collegiate teams from 10 conferences.

The No. 11 ranked men are heading to Oregon after taking a week off. Prior to that they placed first in the Sacramento State Invitational with Chandler Goodwin leading the team to a perfect score.

BYU will race against six teams that placed top-30 in the 2005 NCAA Cross Country Championships, including Texas and Portland.

"This should be a very good test for us," said head coach Ed Eyestone. "This will be our first real chance to compete against top 10 teams. We can run with Texas and we can run with Portland. I think that we can move up in the rankings."

Josh Rohatinsky will be competing for the first time since winning the BYU Autumn Classic on Sept. 9. Coach Eyestone is confident that he will perform well.

"I think that Josh has a very good chance to win the whole thing," said Eyestone.

The women are coming off a second place finish at the Great American Invitational. They will be racing against fellow top 10 ranked teams Duke and Arkansas. Head coach Patrick Shane is excited to see how his team will fare against the competition.

"This will be the best competition we have had all year," said Shane. "It will also be the best competition we will see until Pre-Nationals. This race will allow us to run what appears to be our top five for the first time all year. It will reveal the true nature of our team to some extent."

Kassi Andersen will compete after sitting out of the Great American Invitational. Along with her, Breanne Sandberg and Amber Duffin will also participate.

Shane believes that this meet will prepare the team for upcoming races, such as the MWC Championships and NCAA competition.

"We need to have three or four people sitting behind the top five, ready to move into the top five if necessary," said Shane. "I'm excited to line up a great team against some great competition. We have potential to have a really great team."

The women's 6,000-meter race will begin at 5:20 p.m. PDT and the men's 8,000-meter race will follow at 6 p.m.