Covenant Releases 2018 Cross Country Schedule

Friday, July 13, 2018

The return of the Mountaintop Invitational and a trip to NCAA Division I member Furman are two of the highlights for the 2018 Covenant cross country schedules, recently released by eighth-year head coach Katie Stanford.

Stanford's teams will open the season by hosting the Mountaintop Invitational on Friday, Aug.

31 on Covenant's campus. The women's two-mile race will begin at 6 p.m., before the men's 5k at 6:30. This will be the sixth time in the last seven years that Covenant will open the year with a home meet. Both programs have claimed first place finishes in five of the previous meets.

In the month of September, Covenant is slated for three meets. The Scots will take part in the Huntingdon Invitational, hosted by Huntingdon College, on Saturday, Sept. 8. The following weekend (Sept. 15), Covenant will compete in the Furman Cross Country Classic in Greenville, S.C. It will be the second time Covenant has run in the Furman Classic, and the first since 2015.

September ends with an annual trip to the Maryville Invitational on Sept. 29. The Scots will be competing in their 10th straight Maryville Invitational, a meet that both Covenant teams won last season. Since 2009, the women have won the Maryville Invitational five times while the men have claimed the team title four times.

After two weeks off, the teams will get travel to Berry College and the Berry Invitational on Oct. 13. It will be the seventh straight year Covenant has competed in the event and will offer a preview of the NCAA South/Southeast Region meet at the same course in November.

The USA South Championship meets are scheduled for Friday, Oct. 26 and will be hosted by Maryville. Both programs took runner-up finishes in last season's races. The race times will be finalized closer to the date, but tentative times are set for 11 a.m. for the women and 12 p.m. for the men.

The Scots then travel back to Mount Berry, Ga., on Saturday, Nov. 10 for the NCAA regional meets. Both squads set program records with their 12th place finishes a season ago and both teams have improved their finishes in each of the last two region meets.

Should a Covenant team or individual qualify for the NCAA Championships, those will take place on Saturday, Nov. 17 in Oshkosh, Wis., hosted by UW-Oshkosh.