No. 14 Razorbacks race in loaded Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational

MADISON, Wisc. – Racing in the Nuttycombe Wisconsin Invitational on Friday morning will have No. 14 Arkansas competing amongst a field of 25 nationally-ranked top 30 women’s programs in a field of 36 teams.

Race time over a 6,000m distance on the Wisconsin course is 12:20 p.m. for the Championship race and 11 a.m. for the B race. Teams will be limited to seven runners in the Championship race.

Live results: https://pttiming.com/event.php?mid=944&pt=schedule. A live steam of the races is available via subscription at RunnerSpace.com here: https://nuttycombe-invitational.runnerspace.com/eprofile.php?do=news&event_id=4311&news_id=647527.

“On the women’s side it’s loaded at Wisconsin,” noted Razorback women’s head coach Lance Harter. “We need to experience that caliber of competition again with so many young people who are naïve to this whole process. We’ll see a preview of what we’re going to see at the national championships.

“For the first time we will have our full line-up complete, and we’ll go into battle as best we can. Right now, everybody is healthy. Katie McCune has been fighting a foot injury that has finally kind of corrected itself.”

The women’s field includes nine top 10 teams, led by No. 1 NC State, No. 2 New Mexico, No. 4 Northern Arizona, No. 5 BYU, No. 7 Colorado, No. 8 Stanford, No. 9 Washington, and No. 10 Notre Dame.

Nine additional schools ranked in the top 20 include No. 11 North Carolina, No. 12 Utah, No. 13 Georgetown, No. 14 Arkansas, No. 15 Syracuse, No. 16 Providence, No. 17 Michigan State, No. 18 Michigan, and No. 19 Utah Valley.

The rest of the field includes No. 21 Oregon, No. 22 Colorado State, No. 23 Utah State, =No. 24 Florida State, =No. 24 Furman, No. 28 Wisconsin, No. 30 Harvard, Air Force, Boise State, Duke, Gonzaga, Indiana, Iowa State, Minnesota, Oregon State, Portland, Princeton, Toledo, and Tulsa.

Isabel Van Camp has led the Razorbacks in the past two outings, placing 10th over 6k (20:37.4) in the Oklahoma State Jamboree and winning the 5k (15:58.0) race in the Chile Pepper Festival, which earned her SEC Runner of the Week.

A pair of freshmen have occupied the second and third spot for Arkansas in the past two meets with Mia Cochran (24th) and Sydney Thorvaldson (44th) in the Jamboree, while they reversed their finish in the Chile Pepper race with Thorvaldson fourth and Cochran sixth.

“We had to do a little bit of guessing after our top five,” said Harter of the seven runners who will represent Arkansas in the Championship race at Wisconsin. “Runners six and seven as well as eight and nine are somewhat interchangeable.

“So, this line-up might be a preview of the SEC meet, but 8-9-10 are still in the conversation and are very capable of mixing it up by the conference meet. We can run 12 in the SEC and then the gauntlet occurs when we have to cut back to seven for the regional meet.”

The Wisconsin Invitational the final regular season meet for the Razorbacks. The SEC Championships will be held on Friday, Oct. 28, in Oxford, Mississippi.