Sept. 27, 2004
IOWA CITY, IA –
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THIS WEEK – The University of Iowa men’s and women’s cross country teams travel to Orono, ME Saturday to compete in the Murray Keatinge Invitational. The men will begin their five mile race at 10 a.m. (ct) and the women will run 5,000 meters at 11 a.m.
LAST WEEK – The Iowa men finished eighth (out of 25) at the Roy Griak Invitational in Minneapolis, MN. Senior Matt Esche led the Hawkeyes finishing 23rd in 24:57. Freshman Eric MacTagarrt ran 25:14 to place 36th and Dan Haut was close behind with a time of 25:20. Both sophomore Micha VanDenend and junior Adam Roche were close behind. Wisconsin won the team title with 21 points.
HAWKEYE COACH Larry Wieczorek – Larry Wieczorek is in his 18th season as Iowa men’s cross country coach. In the past six years, Iowa has placed no lower than sixth at the NCAA Regional, including a first place finish at the 2002 NCAA Regional, the highest finish in school history. Wieczorek was a two-time Big Ten champion and a member of Iowa’s last Big Ten track championship team in 1967. Wieczorek still owns Iowa records in the outdoor 5,000-meters and the indoor two mile.
HAWKEYE COACH Layne Anderson – Layne Anderson enters his second season as Iowa women’s cross country coach and assistant women’s track coach. In his first season at Iowa, Anderson guided the cross country team to a ninth-place finish at the NCAA Midwest Regional. Anderson served as the head men’s and women’s cross country coach and assistant track coach at Auburn University prior to joining the Iowa staff. During his tenure at Auburn, he coached seven all-Americans, two SEC champions and 58 academic all-SEC performers.
QUOTING WIECZOREK – “I was satisfied with our performance last week. We beat some major programs but we’ve got an awful lot of room for improvement. Matt Eshce continues to be our leader and that’s something I expected from him as a senior. The younger runners look up to him and his performance as a standard they try to duplicate. This week’s meet will present an opportunity to compete against some east coast teams and improve from last weekend. The race is dedicated to deceased Iowa alum Murray Keatinge. It will be nice to come out with a great performance and represent Iowa.”
QUOTING COACH ANDERSON – “This is a very good meet for our team to compete in. We’ve had three weeks off from competition which has allowed us an opportunity to train more. The girls are all healthy, and we are ready to run well. Our primary goal is to do better than we did three weeks ago. We will be running against some nationally ranked teams such as Purdue. Beating Purdue would give us a lot of momentum going into the Big Ten Championship and give the girls some confidence. They have already beaten Northwestern. Beating another Big Ten team would be great. This meet will reflect the improvements we have made in our time off. Our emphasis is still the end of the year.”