The No. 10 Arizona women’s and unranked men’s cross-country teams will host the Dave Murray Invitational today. They will compete against NAU, the ASU men’s team and several Arizona community colleges. The race, held at the Dell Urich Golf Course in Tucson, is the second race of the season for the Wildcats. And unlike the George Kyte Classic on Sept. 3, the invitational will feature a majority of the team, including 11 Wildcats making their season debut.
“We pretty much will run everybody this race,” said head coach James Li. “People who are ready to do some kind of race will run.”
While the Dave Murray Invitational will not have the most competitive field to challenge the Wildcats this season, it will provide an opportunity for more members of the team to begin their season and give the coaches a better idea of what each team has to offer.
“I am excited to take a look at (sophomore) Lawi Lalang, on the men’s side, who is going to run his first cross-country race for the University of Arizona,” Li said. “And I will be looking forward to see, on the women’s side, obviously (junior) Jen Bergman and (sophomore) Elvin Kibet, and really just a host of our new freshmen people on both men’s and women’s side. I’m just looking forward to seeing them run and perform.”
The NAU men’s team is No. 11 nationally while the ASU men are just ahead of the UA at fourth in the West region. The women’s competition is not quite as daunting, as NAU is unranked and ninth in the Mountain region. The ASU women’s team is not traveling to Tucson. Neither ASU nor NAU are sending their full teams.
The men will begin their 4.25-mile race at 5 p.m., and the women will follow with their three-mile race at 5:45 p.m.
“We are generally pretty familiar with the (Dell Urich Golf Course),” Li said.
“(The invitational) is a little bit shorter than the standard racing distance, so we are just definitely going out there and getting everybody a chance to get in the race and really just stay ready for next week’s Roy Griak Invitational in Minneapolis.”
