Men's Top Times

STEPHENVILLE - The Tarleton men's cross country team is headed to Colorado this weekend for the South Central Regional Meet at Regis University. The Texans are currently ranked No. 9 in the South Central Region.

The Texans, led by all-conference runners Chase Rathke, Tye Doty and Miles Joslin, are fresh off a third-place finish at the Lone Star Conference Championship meet in Lawton, Okla.

Regis University is hosting the regional meet with a 10K race - a 3.3K, three-loop course - and 25 teams are set to compete from Tarleton's new region that consists of the LSC, the Heartland and the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.

The RMAC has 13 teams competing while the LSC is sending seven men's teams and the Heartland is sending five.

"It's a challenging course," said Tarleton head coach Pat Ponder. "It's going to be different running in Colorado (due to higher altitudes), but we are going to train hard and train normal. Hopefully our guys can go up there and execute the race plan."

The Texans will send the top seven runners from the LSC Championship: Doty, Rathke, Joslin, Jeffrey Currie, Thorne Pettigrew, James Polasek and Dylan Willet.

The top six teams will advance to the National Championship meet and the top three individual runners on non-qualifying teams will also advance.

"It's going to be extremely competitive," said Ponder. "No one really expects us to qualify, but we're going with the expectations of continuing our season - otherwise, why go?

"I'm still waiting on these guys to put together their best race of the season," he added. "I know what this team is capable of and I just want to see them put their best race together. If they do that and still don't qualify, at least we can end the season on a high note."

The elevation in Denver is roughly 5,280 feet and the weather is expected to be clear with no chance of showers, a high of 58 degrees and a low of 33 degrees.