Women's Cross Country Heads to Chile Pepper Invitational
Oct 15, 2009 | Cross Country
Oct. 15, 2009
NEW ORLEANS - The Tulane women's cross country team will have their final tune up before the Conference USA Championship as the Green Wave take on the field at the Chile Pepper Invitational in Fayetteville, Ark. on Saturday.
The Green Wave approach full strength as junior Rebecca Coady returns after missing the last two meets with a sore achillies, while redshirt sophomore Julia Whitrock makes her season debut after resting a lower leg injury. Redshirt freshman Annette Glaz also makes her first appearance of the season. She was limited to just one meet last season and was held out of the first four meets this year as she recovered from lower back pain.
"This will be the first time we really have a full complement of runners," head coach Eric Peterson said. "We wanted to be cautious with Julia and make sure she was fully healthy before she competed for us. Now we're looking for Julia and Annette to make contributions to the team."
"I'm excited to see what we can do this weekend. The Chile Pepper has a rich tradition and I'm eager to see how our team stacks up now against this field. There's no better way to measure than when we have all our kids out there healthy. Having everybody back makes a big difference, especially when they run together as a group. These last few weeks, we've had a group of young runners that had to step up and lead us. They've turned in good performances, but now we can add in these veterans running along side of them, and if they can run together as a pack, then we're a much better team than what we've show the last few meets."
Coady led the Green Wave in the first two events of the season, placing fifth at the Memphis Twilight, and winning the Mook 4 Invitational.
In her absence, Tulane received a breakout performance from freshman Katherine Crabtree, who led the Wave at the LSU Invitational. Crabtree turned in a time of 20:14 at LSU to finish 18th, and finished 22nd at the Gulf Coast Stampede with a career-best 19:34.
Sophomore Johanna Gretschel also stepped up, leading Tulane across the line at the Gulf Coast Stampede with a season-best 19:04 to finish 12th. Freshman Maggie Gentry also turned in a pair of solid performances, placing 14th at the Gulf Coast Stampede with a career-best 19:11. She placed 23rd at LSU in 20:40.
Fellow freshman Emmi Aguillard is coming off a career-best 19:43 at the Stampede, she finished in 25th for the Wave, and has been in Tulane's top four in all four meets this season.
The Chile Pepper is one of the premier events in the nation and will feature 37 universities. This year's field includes Arkansas, Arkansas Little Rock, Arkansas Pine Bluff, Arkansas State, Baylor, BYU, Central Arkansas, Kansas State, Lipscomb, Louisiana Monroe, Loyola Marymount, LSU, McNeese State, Mississippi State, Missouri, Missouri-Kansas City, Missouri State, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, South Dakota, SMU, TCU, Texas A&M Corpus Christi, Texas-Arlington, Texas-San Antonio, Texas Tech, Utah, and Wyoming among Division I Universities.
The gun goes off to begin the women's race at 10:30 a.m. at Agri Park.
Players Mentioned
