Razorbacks among five ranked programs in Pre-National meet

FAYETTEVILLE – No. 22 Arkansas competes in the Pre-National Invitational at Missouri’s Gans Creek course this weekend and the race has been moved from Saturday to Friday due to expected inclement weather in the area.

The Razorbacks will compete on an 8,000m course with the start time scheduled for 10:45 a.m. on Friday. The meet will be streamed live on SEC Network+ and live results are available through PrimeTime Timing at this link – https://live.pttiming.com/xc-ptt.html?mid=8212.

“We have to take a step forward,” said Arkansas men’s head coach Chris Bucknam. “It’ll be a real important race for our kids to get on that course and hopefully we’ll be at the national championship.

“It’s about getting stronger physically as we go through a 12-14 week season. We’re in week eight right now. We have some great kids that are working really hard in trying to do better. It’s just a question of having those guys keep improving with their race fitness.”

Arkansas is one of five nationally ranked top 30 programs scheduled to compete in the Pre-National Invitational. No. 2 Oklahoma State headlines the competition, which includes No. 19 Missouri, No. 24 Ole Miss, and No. 30 Loyola-Chicago.

Additional SEC schools entered include Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi State, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt.

This is the second meet of the season for Arkansas, who won the Chile Pepper Festival team title earlier this month led by Timothy Chesondin setting an 8k Agri Park course and meet record with his victory in 22:53.6.

“This week we’ll take one of our top four from Chile Pepper out of the race with James Sankei not racing,” noted Bucknam. “There’s no trophies to earn at this meet this weekend. So, we’re going compete hard but we’re not going to take chances with the SEC meet three weeks away.

“It’s great competition this weekend and it will be hardening that mental shell. We’re stepping to the line and competing against some of the best people in the country. We’ll see where we measure up as we make forward progress each and every week.”

In the past two seasons the Razorbacks have claimed team titles at Pre-National meets held in Virginia and Wisconsin, which included Ben Shearer being the individual winner in 2023.

Shearer led Arkansas to a team title on the Virginia 8k course as he won the race in 22:55.0 as the Razorbacks scored 35 points to top Tennessee (89), Virginia (112), and Montana State (137) among a field of 23 teams.

Last year, Arkansas won the Pre-National team title in Wisconsin with 89 points over Iowa State (128), Stanford (142), New Mexico (166) and Northern Arizona (178) among a field of 32 teams. Shearer placed 18th as the fourth Razorback while Chesondin finished 52nd as the fifth runner for Arkansas.

“We add the caveat of this meet being moved up to Friday,” stated Bucknam. “I kind of like the chaos and I like to see how people react to that. I like to see how my team reacts to that. It won’t be a normal setup because we usually get there two days before we race.”