Cross Country Set for Regular Season Finale

Friday, October 14

10 a.m.

Oklahoma State University

Penn State Invitational

October 12, 2016 | Cowboy Cross Country & Track, Cowgirl Cross Country & Track

MEET NOTES

The Basics
In the final meet of the regular season, the Oklahoma State Cowboy cross country team looks to cement its spot in the national top-10 and as the region's best squad with another unbeaten regular season record.
The Cowgirls will look to bounce back after their first Jamboree defeat in six years and finish the regular season strong heading into the Big 12 Championship race as defending champs.

Follow the Meet
Fans can follow the action live on Twitter by following @run4okstate for updates. Final results will be published on www.gopsusports.com as well as www.okstate.com, along with a recap of OSU's day on the course.

Meet Schedule (All Times CT)
The 2016 Penn State Open is scheduled to begin at 9:45 a.m., with the women's 6K, then the men's 5.2-mile run will follow at 10:30 a.m.

Last Time Out
The Cowboys scored 24 points to top the field, and Sylvester Barus joined an elite group in OSU history when he crossed the finish line first to give the Pokes their third consecutive individual title, following former Cowboy Kirubel Erassa in 2014 and Cerake Geberkidane's win a season ago.
Barus controlled the race from the gun, jumping into the lead and holding onto it from the first kilometer on, and topping second-place finisher Charles Mathenge of Stephen F. Austin by more than 20 seconds, finishing in 24:33.5.
The Nevada native Josh Thompson was the second-highest finisher in orange, taking fourth, and Christian Liddell and Luis Martinez also finished in the top-10, claiming sixth and eighth overall, respectively. Anthoney Armstrong capped off the top-five for the Cowboys with a time good enough for 12th.

The No. 8 Cowgirls saw their Jamboree win-streak stop at six-straight, but the OSU women claimed second without NCAA champion Kaela Edwards on the course, and several Cowgirls running unattached.
Savannah Camacho picked up where she left off at the Cowboy Preview with an eighth-place finish in the 5K race.
Michelle Magnani ran unattached in the race and took second overall. Her performance garnered praise from Smith and Camacho, and earned the Cowgirl a spot on the team.
NCAA 5,000-meter runner-up Aurora Dybedokken took 10th and was closely followed by Molly Sughroue in 12th and Cowgirl senior Anna Boyert, who took 13th in her final home race at the OSU Cross Country Course.
Tulsa's women won the event with a score of 20, and OSU slotted in at No. 2 with 53.

Coach Dave Smith - Meet Comments

On Michelle Magnani's impact on the team
"She's still a freshman, so a lot of this is going to be a learning experience for her. She's got some excitement and naivety because she doesn't know her limits and she hasn't had the chance to develop yet, so I think that's good. Probably, she'll learn more from the team and the competition than they learn from her."

On the mood in the program when seeing the rankings
"We don't really pay attention to the polls. It's cliché, but true. It changes a little bit every week and sometimes you don't even know why it changes. The men and women have moved up and down, back and forth and sometimes we haven't even competed. We'll get really focused on what we do at the Big 12, regional and national meets. I think the mood is everyone is working hard and concentrating on effort and getting better every day and hoping that we hit full-stride by the time we get into the three meets after this one."

On what the team needs to do at Penn State
"Run hard. We have to have championship level effort even though it isn't a championship level meet. It's kind of our last chance to simulate that before we get into championship season, so I want to go out and run hard. I want to make sure we're giving a big effort this week because we haven't had a lot of opportunities before this and it's the last one before the postseason."

The Field

Men
Akron, Bucknell, Buffalo, UNC Charlotte, Cornell University, Duquesne, Kent State, Mississippi (10), Oklahoma State (9), Penn State, Pittsburgh, Texas (RV), Villanova (RV), Virginia, Virginia Tech (28), William & Mary

Women
Akron, Bucknell, Buffalo, UNC Charlotte, Cornell University (RV), Delaware, Duquesne, Kent State, Lehigh, Mississippi (25), Oklahoma State (14), Penn State (8), Pittsburgh, Texas, Towson, Virginia Tech, West Virginia (30), William & Mary, Wyoming

Oklahoma State Men
Hassan Abdi, Anthoney Armstrong, Sylvester Barus, Christian Liddell, Brigham Hedges, Luis Martinez, Matthew Fayers, Josh Thompson

Oklahoma State Women
Natalie Baker, Anna Boyert, Savannah Camacho, Jennifer Celis, Kaylee Dodd, Aurora Dybedokken, Abbie Hetherington, Kaytlyn Larson, Michelle Magnani, Clara Nichols, Katie Spencer, Molly Sughroue, Gintare Zenkeviciute

Oklahoma State in the Rankings
The Oklahoma State Cowboy cross country team has quietly risen in the rankings again this week after a big shakeup saw BYU climb to No. 3 and Northern Arizona hold off Syracuse for a second-straight week as the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association No. 1 team.
The Pokes checked in at No. 9, giving them their joint-highest rank of the season after they grabbed ninth in week two. The Cowboys moved up in their off-week in part to Eastern Kentucky falling six spots from ninth to 15th.
For the fifth-straight poll, OSU leads the Big 12 as the highest-ranked program. The Cyclones of Iowa State moved up one to 14, and Texas lost its spot at No. 30, but is still receiving votes. A talented Oklahoma squad didn't receive votes for the first time this season after beginning the year as the No. 19 team in the country.
On the women's side, the Cowgirls slid one spot to 14 during the off-week, but still are tops in the region and the conference.
Baylor surged to No. 21 after picking up no votes in week three, and Iowa State dropped three spots to 26. West Virginia staked a claim of the top-30, coming in at 30th, and Kansas and Texas both missed out on spots after appearing in, or receiving votes for the poll all season.

The Best in the Midwest
Under coach Dave Smith, the Cowboy cross country program has been one of the most consistent in the country.
The Pokes have won three national titles, eight Big 12 championships and finished in the top-10 at the NCAA Championships in nine of his 10 seasons as the head coach.
In addition to the trophies and accolades throughout the years, their consistency is best represented by their dominance of the Midwest Region which they have held for 48-straight weeks, dating back to 2011.
It is the longest streak in the NCAA, and it isn't even close.
Including the 2010 season, the Cowboys have been No. 1 in the Midwest for 58 of the past 59 weeks.
In the one week they weren't No. 1 in the Midwest, Oklahoma took the spot after breaking up OSU's Midwest Region title streak. But the Pokes made up for it by winning an NCAA title. It was Smith's first of three at OSU and the University's second of four.

Magnani Earns a Rare Chance
After her surprise second-place finish at the Cowboy Jamboree, Michelle Magnani became the most recent OSU freshman to earn a spot on the cross country team in their debut season, an accomplishment most newcomers never achieve.
Last season, two OSU freshmen earned orange jerseys with impressive Jamboree showings in Christian Liddell and Katie Spencer.
Both Spencer and Liddell ran with the team all the way up until the NCAA Championships, and were listed as alternates for the title races in Louisville, Kentucky.
With the Cowgirl squad as deep as ever, but hindered with nagging injuries, Magnani has a chance to pick up where Spencer left off and run with the Cowgirls at this year's championship race in Terre Haute, Indiana, if she can make it through the grueling postseason that includes the Big 12 Championships in Lubbock, Texas, and the Midwest Regional in Iowa City in the span of just two weeks.