UNC Asheville Cross Country to Host Pre-Big South Conference Meet at Jackson Park on Friday

ASHEVILLE, N.C. ? The UNC Asheville men's and women's cross country teams will be in action close to home this weekend when the Bulldog harriers host the Pre-Big South Conference meet at Jackson Park Friday afternoon starting at 5:30 p.m. Admission is free.

Jackson Park will be the site of the 2008 Big South Conference Meet on Oct. 27 and four Big South teams along with Gardner-Webb are going to run in Friday's meet in preparation for the league event.

First-year coach Jesse Norman is looking forward to hosting the meet and is excited to get his team in action again. The Bulldog harriers opened the season at the Gamecock Invitational on Aug. 31.

“We're looking forward to not having to travel very far for a meet,” commented Norman. “This is quite exciting to have a meet close to home and our fans can come out and see us run. It should also be a great test to see what we need to make sure we do for the Big South Conference Meet.”

The five-team meet includes Gardner-Webb, High Point, Radford, VMI and UNC Asheville.

“We certainly will be challenged on Friday,” said Norman. “We've got some good teams in this meet and we'll see how far we've come since running at South Carolina.”

The Bulldogs women's squad was led by Emily Mase at the Gamecock Invitational. She finished in fifth place with a time of 18:26 over the 5K course. Junior Andrew Burnette sparked the men's squad with an eight-place finish of 16:21 over the 5K course.