Mankato, Minn. ---   The Minnesota State men’s and women’s cross country teams look to race to victory in the 2011 Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference Championship hosted by MSU-Moorhead Saturday.

Minnesota State’s women’s team, which was rated eighth in the region back in September, is hoping to better last year’s fifth-place conference finish.  MSU, which last competed Oct. 8 when it ran in the nonscoring Caty’s Run, is led sophomores Laura Hughes and Sarah Bowler. Hughes, a Mankato native, finished third at Caty’s Run and posted a 32nd-place finish at last year’s league meet. Bowler (Circle Pines, Minn.) and tied for fifth at this year’s Caty’s Run and was 21st at last year’s conference meet.

On the men’s side, the Mavericks enter this weekend’s NSIC meet ranked fifth in the region and #13 in this week’s national poll.  Juniors Garrett Ekloff and Josh Mellman, along with freshman Josiah Swanson, pace MSU, which have won two meets this fall having finished first at the St. Olaf Invitational in Northfield Sept. 17 and at the Yellowjacket Invitational in Spearfish, S.D., Oct. 8.  MSU finished third at last year’s conference meet.

The site for the 2011 NSIC meet is the Ponderosa Golf Club in Glyndon, Minn. The women’s 6K race begins at 11:00 a.m. followed by the men’s 8K race at 12:00 p.m. Results will be available at: http://www.pickleevents.com/results/

Freshman Josiah Swanson (Fond du Lac, Wis.) comments on MSU's season to date.