ND Cross Country: Squads face difficult fields
By: JOE LINDSLEY
Sports Writer
Until now, the Notre Dame mens and womens cross country teams have been dominant in both of this season's races on the Burke Memorial Golf Course.
Today, though, as the Irish runners host the Notre Dame Invitational, both squads are setting their sights on second, not first place.
The reason — cross-country powerhouse Stanford Cardinal is flying in for a little racing on the links.
"We just want to compete well and see how we compare to Stanford," sophomore Todd Mobley said. "We'd like to get second at least, and see what happens from there."
"I want to go out and compete really, really well and if we get second in the race, I'll be real happy," added Irish womens coach Tim Connelly. "If we go in and compete as well as we can, that's what I'm looking for. We're not focusing on any one team. The goal is just to keep getting better every time we go out."
In addition to No. 2 Stanford, the third-ranked Notre Dame womens team will take on No. 18 Wisconsin, No. 27 Indiana and a variety of other teams ranging from talented Washington to top-ranked Division III squads.
Although the competitive level will be raised in today's race compared to the previous two, the Irish will still try to employ their strategy of running in packs.
Two weeks ago, against less formidable competition at the National Catholic Championships, Connelly had his runners stick together at the front of the field during the entire race. The approach to the Notre Dame Invitational will be similar, although implementing of the strategy will be altered because of the caliber of teams present.
"The race plan will be the same," Connelly said. "We have to look for each other early and find each other and race together. We're not going to say, `Okay all nine of you go out and be together every step of the way.' We have certain groups that we'll try to get to be with each other."
Connelly has also been impressed with how the freshmen on his team are adapting to collegiate running.
"Most of those freshmen didn't have people on their [high school] team[s] to race with them," he said. "It's a whole new thing learning to race and train. They're doing a really great job."
The freshmen on the mens squad have also seemingly made the transition to collegiate cross country well, despite the added challenge of having to increase their race distance from the high school standard of five kilometers to the collegiate eight.
"I'm just going to hold on for as long as possible," freshman Tim Moore said. "I'm basically going to try to let the older guys do the work for me and try to reap the benefits by sitting on their shoulders for most of the race, and run as hard as I can."
Moore, who trained with Mobley when they were both in high school, won last year's Foot Locker National Championships — the nation's premier high school cross country race.
With freshman talent like Moore on board, the 23rd-ranked Irish are confident they can handle all of Friday's competition, except for Stanford, the number one team in the nation. Mobley, Notre Dame's fastest runner, is expecting to see a challenge on the individual level too.
"It's my first tough individual competition," he said.
Mobley will be pitted against such top runners as Stanford's Don Sage, who, like Mobley, achieved All-America status last year.
Although the Burke Memorial will be filled with some intense racing this weekend, Notre Dame has even more challenging days ahead.
"It's the first important meet on the schedule," Mobley said. "It's still nothing compared to the later meets."
All Sports Stories for Friday, October 4, 2002
