WICHITA, Kan. – Wichita State's cross country program will send the men's and women's teams to Madison, Wis., to compete in the 2018 Wisconsin Pre-Nationals race on Saturday, Sept. 13.
 
The Pre-Nationals will consist of two evenly seeded races per gender, the "Cardinal" and "White" races. The Shocker women are entered in the Cardinal 6K race at 10 a.m., while the men will compete in the White 8K race at 12:15 p.m.
 
Wichita State will be up against some of the top teams in the country as this serves as the pre-cursor for the national championships. The event will welcome 20 top-25 nationally ranked women's teams and 19 top-25 men's teams, along with 10 2018 USTFCCCA National Athlete of the Week honorees.
 
"You are going to line-up against some of the top teams in the country and this is a meet that can define who you really are as a team," said head cross country coach Kirk Hunter. "Sometimes you go to this meet and the athletes fail out of fear, if they just run the race and not worry about it, everything will go great and we will do well as a team."
 
Men's Preview
 
Wichita State will enter seven men in the White 8K race, captain Zack Penrod has led the No. 14 Midwest regional ranked Shockers with two top-20 finishes. The redshirt junior started the season with a second place finish at the J.K. Gold Classic and most recently finished 20th at the Chile Pepper Invitational.
 
Dray Carson, Clayton Duchatschek, Ben Flowers, Josh Klein, Alex Moen and Pedro Montoya will compete alongside Penrod in the White 8K race. Flowers and Klein each set a personal best 8K times on Sept. 22 at the Chile Pepper Invitational
 
"Our goal is whoever our top-runner is, how close can we be to them," said Hunter. "We have the ability as a team that we could have seven guys together at the finish line. This group is that talented in terms of comparison." 
 
Ethan Kossover and Cory Landon will run in the Men's 8K Gray race at 1:45 p.m.
 
The Shocker men will face-off against nine top-25 teams, including nationally ranked No. 2 Brigham Young University. BYU is led by senior Clayton Young of American Fork, Utah. Young recently was named the USTFCCCA National Athlete of the Week on Oct. 8.  The Cougars have maintained the No. 2 ranking in all five weeks of the national polls behind No. 1 Northern Arizona.
 
Other top teams competing in the White 8K race include, No. 4 Portland, No. 8 Syracuse, No. 9 Purdue, No. 10 Air Force, No. 12 Washington, No. 17 Washington State, No. 21 Indiana and No. 25 UCLA.

Wichita State will get their first look at American Athletic Conference foe Tulane, the Green Wave are led by senior Emmanuel Rotich. The Kenyan won the 2017 American Athletic Cross Country individual title and was named the 2017 USTFCCCA South Central Region Athlete of the Year. Recently Rotich was named the American Athletic Conference cross country runner of the week.
 
Rory Linkletter of BYU won the 2017 Pre-National 8K with a time of 23:08.4, the Cougars took the team title with 41 points.
 
Women's Preview
 
The Wichita State women's team has a strong 1-2 punch with Winny Koskei and Rebekah Topham, the duo has recorded top-5 finishes in both races entered this year. Topham started the 2018 campaign with becoming the first athlete, male or female, to win the J.K. Gold Classic four times. Most recently Koskei was named the American Athletic Conference female runner of the week for her third place performance at the Chile Pepper Invitational on Sept. 22.
 
"Winny has been training really well in practice every day, I believe she is ready to race and will do a great job at this meet," said Hunter. "Rebekah is a true competitor, she always has the ability to rise to the occasion. When it comes down to it, she shows up for big races."
 
Other Shockers in the Cardinal 6K race include, Halle Johnson, Winnie Kibet, Amber Reed, Rita Schnacker and Yazmine Wright. Destini Eskridge and Tangy Wiseman will compete in the Women's 6K Gray race at 1:00 p.m.
 
The Shockers will face a loaded field that will feature 10 teams in the top-25 of the USTFCCCA national rankings, including four in the top-10. After sitting No. 2 in the nation for four weeks, Colorado jumped to No. 1 in the most recent polls and will enter the Cardinal race as the favorite.
 
The race will also feature two USTFCCCA National Athlete of the Week recipients, Susan Ejore of Oregon took the honor on Sept. 10, and most recently Kate Hunter of BYU was awarded for her first place performance at the Steven Reeder Memorial Invitational.
 
Oregon won the 2017 Pre-National 6K team title with 63 points, while Elinor Purrier of New Hampshire won the race in 19:28.5.
 
How to Keep Up
 
Live results will be streamed through Record Timing. Results will also be posted on the official @GoShockersTFXC twitter account. A live video stream will be produced by FloTrack.