ROLLA, Mo. – Missouri S&T's cross country teams will see its first competition since the opening weekend of October Saturday morning when it hosts the Jackling Jocks Invitational at the S&T Golf Course.
The meet will kick off with the men's eight-kilometer race at 9:45 a.m., followed by the women's five-kilometer event at 10:30 a.m. There will also be an open five-kilometer race that will begin following the two collegiate races at 11:15.
A total of six men's and seven women's teams – all from either the Great Lakes Valley Conference or the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association – will take part in Saturday's competition. Besides Missouri S&T, the GLVC schools taking part are Drury and William Jewell, while Missouri Southern, Pittsburg State, Southwest Baptist and the women's team from Lincoln University will represent the MIAA.
Missouri Southern's women's team is currently ranked 13
th nationally and third in the Central region, while Southwest Baptist is sixth and Pittsburg State is tenth in that region. On the men's side, Missouri Southern is 16
th nationally and third in the Central region, while Southwest Baptist is eighth in that region this week.
Missouri S&T's top runners heading into the race are
Trenton Morris (Joplin, Mo./College Heights Christian) and
Megan Schulte (Columbia, Mo./Rock Bridge), who have finished as the team's top runner in each of the three meets the teams have taken part in this season.
Morris finished first at Truman State's invitational earlier this season and has since added a ninth place finish among the college division runners at the Chile Pepper Festival at Arkansas on Oct. 4. Morris was 11
th in last season's Jackling Jocks Invitational while running for Southwest Baptist, while current teammate
Danny Deposki (St. Louis, Mo./Lindbergh) finished in seventh place overall.
Schulte, who finished 13
th in last year's home meet – teammate
Alyson Smith (Scott Air Force Base, Ill./Mascoutah) was eighth overall – has two finishes among the top 11 on an individual basis this season, headed by a fifth place showing at Truman State.
Among the other top competitors on the men's side are Missouri Southern's Eric Schott, who is a two-time recipient of the MIAA's "Runner of the Week" award and won the SBU Invitational two weeks ago with a time of 25:08; he has not finished behind an NCAA Division II runner in any race this season; Southwest Baptist's Drew Cargill, who was fifth at his home meet this year and sixth at last season's Jackling Jocks Invitational; and Pittsburg State's Austin Bogina, who finished in 11
th place at the University of Kansas' Rim Rock Collegiate Challenge earlier this month.
The women's race will feature Dora Easton of Missouri Southern, who placed second in last year's Jackling Jocks Invitational and claimed the individual title at the SBU Invitational on Oct. 14 and Southwest Baptist's Courtney Rogers, who finished second to Easton in the Oct. 14 race.
In addition, the race will include Pittsburg State's Hannah DeVries, who was named as the MIAA's "Runner of the Week" earlier in the season after a seventh place showing at Kansas; William Jewell's Lizzy Stevenson, who finished fifth in her most recent race; and Lincoln's Monique Thompson, who has two top-20 finishes on her resume this season.
Missouri Southern, SBU, Missouri S&T and Drury were the top four teams in last year's men's meet, while Southwest Baptist won last year's women's competition, finishing ahead of Drury, MSSU and S&T.
