Women's Cross Country Opens Season at Belmont Opener
9/5/2008 12:00:00 AM
Sept. 5, 2008
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - The Alabama women's cross country team will open their season later today at the Belmont Opener at Vaughn's Creek Course in Nashville, Tenn. The Crimson Tide is set to toe the line at 5:30 p.m.
This is the third consecutive year head coach Randy Hasenbank has brought the Crimson Tide to the Music City for the Belmont Opener. The squad finished fifth at last year's meet behind SEC schools Tennessee and Vanderbilt. Alabama will compete against Tennessee again this year, a team that finished second at the SEC Championships last year.
Alabama will rest their top two runners Haley Moody and Betty Rotich in order to give a very young group an opportunity to Nashville with 7 of the 9 runners being underclassmen.
"This will be the first time for many of these athletes to put on the jersey and run for Alabama so some are a bit nervous but overall they are excited and so am I," Hasenbank said. "The main thing for this weekend is I want to assess where we are with our young runners and just see how they react in competition at this level."
The Crimson Tide will take a week off before hosting the 20th Annual Crimson Classic on Sept. 20 at the Harry Pritchett Course.
