Iowa To Run On Saturday

Sept. 26, 2005

Complete Release in PDF Format
Download Free Acrobat Reader

THIS WEEK – The University of Iowa men’s and women’s cross country teams compete Saturday. The Iowa men travel to the 14th annual Murray Keatinge Invitational in Orono, ME. The 8,000-meter race will be held at 11 a.m. EDT at the Maine practice fields and finishes at Alford Stadium track. Some of the teams Iowa will compete against are No. 4 Stanford, No. 36 Dartmouth, Idaho State, New Hampshire and host school Maine.

The Iowa women will compete at the Williamette Invitational in Salem, OR. The 5,000-meter race will begin at 10:10 a.m PDT. at Bush Park. Some of the teams Iowa will compete against are No. 29 Washington, Air Force, Gonzago, Idaho, Santa Clara, and host school Williamette.

LAST TIME OUT – The Iowa men’s country team placed third at the Roy Griak Invitational hosted by the University of Minnesota. Iowa performed very well finishing higher than eight ranked opponents with a time of 2:05:01. Dan Haut led Iowa with an 18th place finish (24:44).

The Iowa women faired very well in their first meet of the season at the Hawkeye Open. The team took first in their 3K race with a final score of 26, edging out UNI by 15 points. Meghan Armstrong also took first while breaking the Ashton Cross Country Course 3,000-meter race record with a time of 10:25.

IOWA IN THE RANKINGS – The University of Iowa Men’s Cross Country team is ranked 13th nationally in this week’s Mondo NCAA-I Men’s poll conducted by the United States Cross Country Coaches Association. The ranking is three spots higher than their preseason ranking. The Hawkeyes rank No. 1 in the Midwest Region.

For the first time under Head Coach Layne Anderson the University of Iowa Women’s Cross Country program received points in the FinishLynx/NCAA Division I Women’s Cross Country National Poll. The Hawkeyes are currently ranked 35th in the country with a total of 11 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 is in 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 COACH WIECZOREK – “I’m really happy with our perfomance at the Griak Invitational. Defeating eight ranked teams gives us a nice boost of confidence for the rest of the season knowing we can compete against some of the best teams in the nation.”

QUOTING COACH ANDERSON – “This is a chance to compete against a lot of teams from the west we don’t usually get to compete against. It will be good for us to face some good competition to help us prepare for pre-nationals.” .