The Emory University men's and women's country teams return to action on Saturday (Nov. 1) when they compete in the 28th Annual University Athletic Association Cross Country Championships. The competition will be held at Forest Park in St. Louis, Mo. The men's 8K race begins at 11:30 am (CDT), and will be followed by the women's 6k competition at 12:15 pm.
Both races will feature some of the top talent in the Division
III ranks with four men’s and five women’s programs
garnering recognition in the U.S. Track & Field and Cross
Country Coaches Association Top 35 Poll. On the women’s
side, the Eagles hold down the No. 30 spot nationally while other
ranked programs include No. 8 Washington University, No. 16 and
defending champ Chicago, No. 17 Case Western Reserve and No. 25 New
York University. Senior Tamara Surtees has been the
Eagles’ top performer in their last four meets and is coming
off a 12th-place finish out of 341 runners at Oberlin
College’s Inter-Regional Rumble on Oct. 18. Surtees has
claimed Second Team All-UAA honors the past two seasons.
Emory will be aiming to improve upon last year’s
seventh-place finish.
Three UAA men’s teams are in the top 30, No. 13 and
four-time defending conference champ Wash U, No. 27 Chicago and No.
28 NYU. The other ranked team hitting the course on Saturday
is No. 31 Carnegie Mellon. Senior Alex Fleischhacker and
junior Lukas Mees have ranked as the team’s top runner in two
meets each while senior Tyler Cooke topped the pack in the
squad’s last outing, crossing the finish line in
41st position out of 278 entries at the Inter-Regional
Rumble. Sophomore Grant Murphy has made his presence felt as
well this year, scoring for the Eagles in all five competitions
this fall. Emory finished fifth in last season’s UAA
Championships.