XC Preview: Billikens Open Cross Country Season Friday Morning

The Saint Louis males’s and girls’s cross nation squads open the 2025 marketing campaign on Friday morning after they participate within the Mizzou Opener in Columbia, Mo.

Both the ladies’s and males’s groups will run 5K. The girls’s race begins at 8 a.m., with the boys’s race to start at roughly 8:30 a.m.

The meet is being held on the Gans Creek Cross Country Course, the positioning of this 12 months’s NCAA Championships. As such, there will likely be a number of nationwide contenders within the meet. Oregon and Wisconsin joins SLU and Missouri on the boys’s aspect. The girls’s race options Arkansas, Wisconsin, SLU and Missouri.

“We’re excited to get the season started,” SLU head coach Jon Bell stated. “Tomorrow is just step one in a long season ahead. Our schedule this year is one of the toughest in the entire country. Throughout this regular season the men race 14 of the top 30 preseason teams in the country and our women 11 of the top 30. The men open up against #5 Wisconsin and #9 Oregon, so right off the bat we’ll see how we trained over the summer. We’ll also get to see how our freshman adjust to college racing. The women open against #21 Arkansas, so just like the men, we’ll get challenged right away. The key to success this season will be our ability to stay patient and let the season come to us.”

Friday marks the primary of 4 regular-season meets for the Billikens. They are additionally at Missouri on Sept. 26 (Gans Creek Classic) and Oct. 18 (Pre-National Invitational). SLU runs within the Bradley Intercollegiate on Sept. 19. The 2025 A-10 Championship is ready for Saturday, Nov. 1, in Cedarville, Ohio, and the NCAA Midwest Regional will likely be held Friday, Nov. 14, in Stillwater, Okla.