Oct. 30, 2009

The Great West Conference Cross Country Championships will take place on Saturday, October 31, at storied Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, N.Y. It will be the second annual championships for the GWC and will be hosted by NJIT. The 8K men's race will get underway at 8:45 a.m. ET, followed by the 6K women's race at 9:45 a.m.

Utah Valley will defend its women's title while Texas-Pan American will look to repeat as men's champion. 2008 individual men's champion Daniel Martinez (25:53.9), from HBU, and women's champion Ramsey Fitzsimmons (22:47.4), from South Dakota, will both defend their titles. Fitzsimmons posted the top 6K time this year of 21:00 at the Woody Greeno Invitational on September 19. She will be challenged by North Dakota's Brittany Brenny and Utah Valley's Mary Nothum who each have two of the top five times behind Fitzsimmons' in the conference this season.

The top men's time run this season is by NJIT's Umar Saeed, who ran a 25:063 at the Paul Short Invitational on October 2. Saeed placed third in last year's GWC meet with a time of 26:02.6. In addition to Saeed and Martinez, Seattle's Hans Heitzinger, Matthew McClement, Kelton Sears and Erik Barkhaus, as well as NJIT's Christian Baumbach, UVU's Joshua McCabe and South Dakota's Rob Gregoire could challenge for the title.

Great West Conference Commissioner Ed Grom will be on hand to present the champion and runner-up trophies. In addition, the top seven finishers on both the men's and women's sides will be named first team all-conference with the next seven receiving second team honors. A newcomer and coach of the year will also be named, and the individual men's and women's champions will be declared Runners of the Year.