Razorbacks preview region course at Barrios Invitational

COLLEGE STATION – No. 26 Arkansas returns to action with a 6,000m race on Friday morning at the Arturo Barrios Invitational hosted by Texas A&M on the Watts Cross Country course.

The women’s race, which includes 50 teams, starts at 8:50 a.m. with live results available here.

Adams State, ranked No. 1 in Division II, is the other nationally ranked program in addition to the Razorbacks.

“We’re excited to head to College Station,” stated Arkansas women’s cross country coach Marc Burns. “This is a first class venue, dedicated cross country course, and they’ve done a great job with it. We’ll see this course for the South Central Region just about every other year.

“Any chance to race on it is useful, especially with a young team that will be racing on this course quite a bit as we move forward.”

Ranked teams from the South Central Region entered include No. 1 Arkansas, No. 3 Tulane, No. 4 Texas A&M, No. 5 LSU, No. 7 Texas A&M – Corpus Christi, No. 8 UT Arlington, No. 9 TCU, No. 10 Houston, No. 11 Texas, No. 12 Baylor, No. 13 Louisiana, No. 14 North Texas, and No. 15 Incarnate Word.

“I’m excited to see a few teams that we’ll see at the regional meet,” noted Burns. “There should be a couple of good individuals up front for Isca Chelangat to race with.

“Texas A&M won our regional last year so it will be good to see them as well as LSU. Plus there will be teams from other regions that will be good for us to see in Adams State and Eastern Kentucky. The crew we are taking is going to be fine and we will be in good shape. I’m excited to see what they can do.”

Additional regions represented include No. 12 Youngstown State from the Great Lakes Region, No. 10 Tulsa from the Midwest Region, No. 10 Texas Tech from the Mountain Region, No. 13 Central Florida from the South Region, No. 9 Eastern Kentucky from the Southeast Region, No. 8 San Francisco and No. 12 Cal Poly from the West Region.

The women’s field also includes Arizona State, McNeese State, New Mexico State, Ohio State, Rice, Richmond, Sam Houston, Tarleton State, Texas State, UTEP, and UTSA.

In two meets this season, Arkansas has produced the individual winner with Isca Chelangat over 6,000m at Gans Creek Classic and then a 5,000m victory for Braelyn Combe at the Chile Pepper Festival held at Agri Park. Both were named SEC Runner of the Week for their respective performances.

“I’m still learning about Isca and we learned a lot after Gans Creek,” said Burns. “She went to the well there, and ran really, really well. But it took a little bit for her to recover. I don’t want her to have to go through that over this next week.

“The goal here this week is to win the race but not go as deep into the well as she had to at Gans Creek. We talked about saving those efforts for SEC and nationals. That’s why I’m glad we racing here because we’ll need a similar type effort in the region meet. Just do enough to win and don’t try to drill anybody. Manage your effort throughout the race, so you know you can come back next week and have a good week of training.”

Paityn Noe raced for the first time since the 2025 NCAA Outdoor Championships in placing seventh at Chile Pepper and will have a second outing at the Barrios Invitational. During the 2024 South Central Region meet, Noe won the race by 27 seconds (18:55.8) on the Watts course to lead the Razorbacks to a one point victory over Texas, 80-81.

The 2024 SEC Championships were also held at Texas A&M and Noe finished third with a time of 18:37.6 to lead Arkansas to a fourth-place team finish.

“In Paityn’s case we’ve talked a lot about these first pair of races being very controlled,” noted Burns. “She didn’t really push hard in the last 1k at Chile Pepper. Her and Braelyn were together with 1k to go and Braelyn put 17 seconds on Paityn by the finish.

“We need big efforts from Paityn at SEC and nationals. I’ve been very impressed with Paityn because patience hasn’t always been her strong suit. Now she is way more patient and composed. It’s a veteran experience type of thing. She’s matured a ton as an athlete over this last year. I think she’s going to have a great rest of this cross season and into the track season as well.”