Oct. 12, 2001

BIRMINGHAM - The Samford Cross Country team will compete in its toughest meet thus far this season when the team travels to the Pre-NCAA Meet at Furman Saturday. One hundred and three men's teams and 104 women's teams will compete in the meet. The field also includes 22 of the top 35 men's teams and 26 of the top 35 women's teams.

The Bulldogs' men's team is coming off a second place finish at the Pre-District Meet held last weekend. Sophomore Brett Baddorf ran the 8K in 27:38 to finish fifth. Samford placed six runners in the top 15.

In this weekend's meet, each team can run seven people which means there could be 721 men and 728 women running.

The races will be divided into two seeded races and one unseeded race. Both Samford teams will run in a seeded race. The women will run in the silver race while the men will run the black race.

Top men's teams partcipating include No. 1 Colorado No. 2. Stanford No. 5. Notre Dame No. 8. Northern Arizona No. 9. North Carolina State No. 9.(tie) Villanova No. 11. Colorado State No. 13. Duke No. 14. Wake Forest No. 15 Arizona State No. 16. Michigan State No. 17. BYU No. 18. Oregon No. 19. Eastern Michigan and No. 20. Alabama

Top women's teams participating include No. 1. Colorado No. 2. Stanford No. 3. NC State No. 4. BYU No. 4. (tie) Arizona State No. 6. Boston College No. 8. North Carolina No. 9. Arizona No. 11. Georgetown No. 12. Colorado State No. 13. Michigan State No. 15. Virginia No. 16. Washington No. 17. Boston University No. 19. Marquette and No. 20. Cornell .