Men's Cross Country Set for Races at Lehigh and Louisville

LEWISBURG, Pa. – The Bucknell men's cross country team has two events on the schedule this weekend. The Bison will send a large group of runners to Lehigh's Paul Short Run on Friday and will be represented by 10 of its top runners in a challenging field at the Greater Louisville Classic on Saturday.

The Greater Louisville Classic will be one of the nation's marquee running events Saturday. The 28-team field includes five nationally-ranked teams in No. 4 Wisconsin, No. 8 Iona, No. 10 Michigan, No. 13 Mississippi and No. 28 Eastern Kentucky, as well as three teams – Eastern Michigan, Louisville and Penn State – that are listed among the teams receiving votes. Eighteen teams are recognized in their respective regional rankings, including Bucknell at No. 10 in the Mid-Atlantic. The race is scheduled for a 9:30 a.m. start.

“Although we took our team to Pre-Nationals at Louisville in 2012, we have never competed at the Greater Louisville Classic, which will be run on the NCAA Championships course,” said Bucknell head coach Kevin Donner. “This will be our first major test of the year, and I am interested to see how we stack up against some top-ranked teams. We will need to be a little more aggressive than previous meets and will need to really hold our mental focus in the later stages of the race.”

The Greater Louisville Classic is held on an 8k course at E.P. Tom Sawyer State Park. Wisconsin is the defending champion, beating out runner-up Mississippi.

Bucknell is coming off a win in the 4k race at the Dickinson Long-Short Invitational, fueled by a runner-up finish by Luke Giugliano. The Bison took three of the top five spots, with John Westwood and Andrew Kuchta finishing third and fourth, respectively.

The Bison finished 11^th in the Brown Race at Lehigh's Paul Short Run last season. Peter Murray, Ross Pirnie and Zach Williams are their top three returning finishers, but all three will be competing at Louisville this weekend.