NEW ORLEANS - The University of Toledo women's cross country team continued its climb up the national rankings, as the Rockets sit just two spots outside of the top-30 in the latest USTFCCCA poll.
The Rockets garnered 15 points in the latest poll, only one point behind No. 31 Arkansas and five points behind No. 30 Notre Dame. Toledo is also ranked just ahead of Great Lakes Region foe Indiana (No. 33).
The No. 32 ranking for the Rockets is their highest since the team was also ranked No. 32 on Nov. 4, 2003. The women's cross country team has now been nationally-ranked in six (2000-04, 2009) of the last 10 years. Since 2000, the only other Mid-American Conference schools to be nationally ranked are Ball State (2000, 2002-03), Akron (2005) and Miami (2008).
Toledo is coming off of a dominant win at the Colonial Inter-Regional Challenge, scoring only 28 points to defeat William & Mary (43 points) and seven other schools. This past weekend, William & Mary went on to defeat current No. 27 and then-No. 16 Northern Arizona in a win that helped legitimize the Rockets placement in the national poll.
"It has been a long rebuilding process from 2006 until now," said head coach Kevin Hadsell. "We are still very young, with only one senior and six freshmen and sophomores in our top-nine runners."
The Rockets held out their top-nine from this past weekend's Loyola Lakefront Invitational to give them a chance to train for the Pre-NCAA Invitational (Saturday, Oct. 17) and give the rest of the team more race experience. The "B" team ran well, finishing 10th out of 34 universities, led by senior Dagna Sztykiel (Bytom, Poland) who finished 32nd overall out of nearly 400 runners in a time of 18:57. The Rockets had a 47-second spread in the meet.
"We need to keep doing the right things and stay healthy," Hadsell said. "We are getting in some great training at the moment and they continue to improve day-to-day, which is what you need to do in order to challenge for championships. We hope to do well next weekend but our main goal is to continue to train through to the MAC Championships. Challenging to win the MAC is the first priority. Everything after that is a bonus."
Contact: Scott Miles
scott.miles@utoledo.edu
