Wyoming cross country heads to 2021 Griak Invitational

LARAMIE — The University of Wyoming Cross Country Teams will travel to St. Paul, Minn., to compete at the 2021 Griak Invitational hosted by the University of Minnesota on Friday, September 24th. 

The Cowboys and Cowgirls will face a good field when they take to the course on Friday morning as the men will run an 8K and the women a 6K. Competing at the Griak in both sides of the races are three teams in the top 30 nationally, including No. 3 BYU on the men’s side and the host school Minnesota at No. 10 on the women’s side.

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Said Coach Scott Dahlberg, “With around 20 teams in each race, there’s very good competition on both sides.  Many nationally ranked teams and others ranked high in different regions.” 

In addition to BYU, the men will face off against No. 10 Iowa State and No. 26 Michigan State while the women go up against No. 6 Michigan State and No. 30 Iowa State along with Minnesota. 

This will be the second race of the season for the Cross Country squad after competing at the Wyoming Invite on September 3rd and 4th in Cheyenne, Wyo., with Dahlberg and the team ready to take on the next challenge of the season. Dahlberg said this about the course, “The course at Minnesota is an honest cross country course with thick grass, lots of hills and turns.  This course matches up well with our early season training.” 

Friday’s race will take place on the Les Bolstad Golf Course on the University of Minnesota’s campus in the morning with the Men’s Gold (Division 1) Competition slated for a 9:30 AM (MT) start right after the conclusion of the national anthem with the Women’s Gold Competition scheduled for an 11:15 start. 

On the competition Dahlberg said, “We’re excited for the race at Griak this Friday.  The teams have turned in great workouts the past two weeks and are ready to compete.  For the men were looking for a more complete race. In Cheyenne, there were a lot of good performances but a few guys finished knowing they could have pushed more in the middle of the race. Some of that is trusting themselves and we feel they have gained good confidence since then. For the women, we are running four freshmen in uniform who ran unattached at our first meet. They are transitioning great and will add depth to a crew who is progressing extremely well. For both teams, if they race at the same level they’ve been working out, it will be a good result.” 

Fans can follow along at https://live.pttiming.com/xc-ptt.html?mid=2330

Stay up to date with Wyoming Cross Country and Track & Field by following @wyo_track on Twitter.

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