No. 21 Razorbacks compete in Weis-Crockett Invitational on NCAA course

STILLWATER, Okla. – No. 21 Arkansas competes in Oklahoma State’s Weis-Crockett Invitational at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, racing over an 8,000m course that will host the NCAA Championships in November.

Fans will be charged $5 for entry to the course, and tickets can be purchased in advance online. Live results will be available here: https://live.pttiming.com/XC-PTT.html?mid=5223.

The field of 27 teams in the men’s race includes four nationally ranked top 30 teams. Leading the group is host school Oklahoma State, who are ranked No. 4, followed by No. 21 Razorbacks, No. 25 Montana State, and No. 29 California Baptist.

Other schools competing include Abilene Christian, Butler, Charleston Southern, DePaul, Iowa, Kansas, Kansas State, Liberty, Little Rock, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oral Roberts, Pittsburgh, Portland State, Purdue, St. Louis, South Dakota State, Southern Utah, UC Santa Barbara, UCLA, Washington State, and Wyoming.

“There are two big meets this weekend, the one in Wisconsin and the national meet at Oklahoma State,” said Arkansas men’s head coach Chris Bucknam. “We chose the Oklahoma State course, where we opened on September 1 with a small group in a 5k race. This will be the first time we have our full squad on this course. This is our preview before the national championships.

“We have two goals. The first is to run against some great competition. Number two is just to get on this course again – to preview it for the national meet and I like the toughness of the course. It’s very challenging.”

This will be the second consecutive meet with Arkansas running a full squad after claiming at team victory during the Chile Pepper Festival at Agri Park a couple of weeks ago.

“We’re running everybody, and we’ll see what happens,” noted Bucknam. “We may have one question mark or two due to health reasons. But as of now we have everybody entered and the plan is to run everybody on Saturday.”

Patrick Kiprop led the Razorbacks during the Chile Pepper race, finishing as runner-up in the 8k race in 23:24.6. Ben Shearer, the SEC Freshman Runner of the Week, placed sixth overall and was the fourth collegian in the large field with a time of 23:49.0. The rest of Arkansas’ scoring five included Jacob McLeod (13th), Myles Richter (19th), and Josh Shearer (29th).

“Patrick Kiprop is our lead guy, and now we’re waiting for our second, third, fourth, and fifth guys to really step up and go to the next level. We have some good athletes in there, whether its Ben Shearer, Myles Richter, or Jacob McLeod. They’re all good athletes, and we hope they make that next step to the next level.

“During the Chile Pepper race we had a breakthrough performance from our redshirt freshman Ben Shearer. If you can get just one breakthrough in a meet it really makes a difference. We had that with Ben, and it was a big confidence builder.”

The Weis-Crockett Invitational is the final regular season meet for the Razorbacks. The SEC Championships will be held on Friday, Oct. 28, in Oxford, Mississippi.