Northwestern University Athletics
Wildcats Head to Griak Invitational
9/22/2004 12:00:00 AM | Women's Cross Country & Track
Sept. 22, 2004
EVANSTON, Ill. - The Roy Griak Invitational has turned into one of the Midwest's most prestigious cross country events -- in fact, make that one of the nation's biggest events. As evidence, more than 3,000 runners from the high school and college levels will be running this Saturday on the Les Bolstad Golf Course in Minneapolis as part of the meet.
Northwestern's women's team will be among them.
The Wildcats will run their first 6-kilometer race of the 2004 season Saturday, competing in the Women's Gold Race that is slated to start at 12:10 p.m. Eight NU women are slated to join the field.
Head coach Amy Tush is excited about this race -- mostly because of how far her women will be running.
"I think the results we have had so far this season have not shown what type of team we are," she said, referring to 4K races at Purdue and Iowa earlier this month. "We have been preparing for 6K meets all along, looking ahead to Big Tens and regionals, so this will be good test to see where we stand."
Many nationally ranked teams will be a part of the field, but only host Minnesota comes from the same region as Northwestern. In addition, not even half of the Big Ten schools will be in attendance. So while this is not necessarily a good opportunity to size up future opponents, Tush still sees it as a chance to measure up.
"We always like to see where we compare," she said. "I believe we will be running 6K in every other meet this season, so this is a good chance to get started working at that distance."
One pleasant surprise to this point has been freshmen Marie Grabinski and Alison Coren. Grabinski finished first among the Wildcat runners in Iowa City two weeks ago, ahead of three-time all-district runner Diana Hossfeld, and Coren scored in that meet.
"Having Marie and Diana running 1-2 together has been really beneficial," said Tush. "Diana was saying the other day how nice it is to have someone to run with -- she has not had that before. We have a solid lead group, and the key is to get all of our scorers up to that level."
NU Runners for Saturday
Alison Coren
Kyna Forkins
Marie Grabinski
Kalysta Harmon
Diana Hossfeld
Lesley Meade
Casey Shea
Caroline Speirs
