Cross Country Team Ranked 18th Nationally
9/16/2008 12:00:00 AM | Women's Cross Country
Sept. 16, 2008
The Rice Owls women's cross country team is ranked 18th in the nation in the first release of the the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Div. 1 poll.
The Owls, winners of two of the last three Conference USA titles, return a strong squad from a year ago. Leading the Owls will be the sophomore duo of Allison Pye and Becky Wade who were both All-C-USA first-team members as freshmen in 2007. Rice became the first program to win the triple crown in 2007, claiming conference championship titles in cross country, indoor track and field, and outdoor track and field. Only one other school (Western Kentucky) out of 32 conferences did what the Owls did. Rice's remarkable 2007 season was highlighted by winning the NCAA South Central Regional title.
Rice is the pre-season favorite to win the C-USA title and is ranked second in the South Central Region.
Oregon, which placed second at the NCAA championship in 2007, was ranked first as it returns four of the five runners from last year's team.
The the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association
Women's Division I Cross Country National Poll:
Ranking Team (first place votes) Region/Rank Totals
1. Oregon (10) West-1 358
2. Florida State (1) South-1 340
3. Washington (1) West-3 328
4. Stanford West-2 316
5. Arizona State West-4 306
6. West Virginia Mid-Atlantic-2 291
7. Princeton Mid-Atlantic-1 276
8. Michigan State Great Lakes-1 272
9. Minnesota Midwest-1 262
10. Illinois Midwest-2 247
11. Arkansas South Central-1 233
12. Texas Tech Mountain-2 206
13. Wisconsin Great Lakes-2 197
14. Colorado State Mountain-1 193
15. Florida South-2 187
16. Providence Northeast-1 174
17. Michigan Great Lakes-3 166
18. Rice South Central-2 160
19. Northern Arizona Mountain-3 144
20. Duke Southeast-1 135
21. Georgetown Mid-Atlantic-3 121
22. BYU Mountain-5 104
23. Colorado Mountain-6 92
24. Baylor South Central-3 81
25. Boston College Northeast-2 72
26. Stony Brook Northeast-3 57
27. Iowa Midwest-4 47
28. North Carolina Southeast-3 41
29. North Carolina State Southeast-2 33
30. Nebraska Midwest-3 25
Others Receiving Votes: Tennessee 20, Georgia 18, Penn State 18, New Mexico 16, Virginia Tech 13, Villanova 10, UC-Riverside 9, Syracuse 5, Notre Dame 4, Virginia 2, Vanderbilt 1.
Players Mentioned
