TEMPE, Ariz. - The Arizona State cross-country team will make their first out-of-state road trip to South Bend, Ind. for the Joe Piane Notre Dame Invitational on Friday, Oct. 2.
"This is a good test physically and mentally for our group," said head coach Louie Quintana.
The 60th annual meet will feature runners from 49 other schools other than the Sun Devils.
The No. 18 men moved up three spots in this week's USTFCCCA National Polls and now have an opportunity to continue that climb, as the school directly above them in the rankings -- No. 17 New Mexico -- is also participating. No. 26 Colorado State, No. 27 North Carolina State and No. 28 Eastern Kentucky will also travel to South Bend.
"The men in the lastest poll we're the second-highest ranked team going in and the guys are very confident," Quintana said. "They're not focused on we have to win the meet. They look at it more as let's continue to run a team race and put our faith in our training."
In the last meet, the Sun Devil men showed their depth, finishing with the top six spots and eight of the top nine at the Dave Murray Invitational in Tucson on Friday, Sept. 18.
For the women, they'll have an even bigger opportunity to make a statement, as No. 1 New Mexico will be competing along with No. 14 North Carolina State, No. 20 Notre Dame and No. 22 Vanderbilt. With a strong performance, the women -- who have received votes in the past two national polls -- could break into the top-30.
"Going into it, the women are unranked with no votes in the poll," Quintana said. "So we're going to utilize that to our advantage, go in there and run fully prepared. I think that's going to suit us just fine with the group we have."
Freshman Samantha Ortega demonstrated her talents in her first collegiate meet at the Dave Murray Invitational, setting an ASU women's course record in the three-mile run with a time of 16:50.00. As a team, the Sun Devil women also finished with three of the top five and seven of the top 10 spots.
"She's really excited to go out there and see where she's at on a national playing field," Quintana said. "There are two other freshmen in the race from other schools -- Ryen Frazier from North Carolina State and Anna Rohrer from Notre Dame -- who are probably the top two recruits in the country. So that'll be an interesting battle there and see where she stands."
While the climate change may seem like an advantage to the school's all coming from similar weather, coach Quintana feels differently.
"I think it's big in a positive way, quite honestly," Quintana said of the weather change. "It'll be 30 degrees cooler come race time and that's a tremendous advantage for us. We haven't ran a single run in the last seven weeks under 85 degrees."
The women's race will start on Friday at 2:00 p.m. while the men have two races -- the divisional race at 2:45 p.m. and an open race at 3:30 p.m.