March 1, 2005
UD Head Men's Cross Country Coach Rich Davis announced his 2005 fall schedule. The Flyers will run in seven intercollegiate meets leading up to the NCAA Championships.
Dayton will begin the year with the team's Intrasquad 5K Meet on Aug. 27 followed by the Flyer 5K Challenge on Sept.3, the season's only home contest. The Flyer 5K Challenge provides an early season meeting for the five NCAA Division I programs of Southwestern Ohio; Dayton, Miami University, University of Cincinnati, Xavier University, and Wright State University. Both of these Saturday events will take place in at the Indian Riffle Park course adjacent to the Kettering Recreation Complex.
"The ability to begin the season with two meets in a familiar setting will help us to build our team for what should be another challenging season," Davis said. "These meets will help us to determine our lineup and give our entire team a chance to compete."
UD will then travel to South Bend, IN for the National Catholic Invitational, hosted by Notre Dame on Fri., Sept. 16. The Flyers placed fourth out of 30 teams in the 2004 event, the program's second best finish in 13 appearances.
"The National Catholic Invite is our first big meet of 2005 and it should serve as an early season test for us," Davis said. "Going after our program's best placing of third will be an early season goal for us."
Dayton then heads to the Greater Louisville Classic on Sat., Sept. 24 for quality competition in preparation for the All-Ohio Championships on Fri., Oct. 7 in Delaware, OH. UD will be looking for its seventh top-ten placing among all schools statewide in its 24th annual appearance at the event.
UD then has one final meet, the Falcon Invitational on Sat., Oct. 15, before its Championship season begins. The team's best-ever five-man average time was set on the Bowling Green University course in 2004.
The Flyers will head to Philadelphia for the Atlantic 10 Championships on Sat., Oct. 29. Dayton looks to improve upon its seventh place finish at the 2004 A-10 meet as six of the team's the top-seven finishers from last year are returning lettermen.
"The A-10 Championship is the ultimate athletic benchmark of our program," Davis said. "We work the entire year at building our team to do our best at this meet."
The Flyers round out the season with the NCAA Great Lakes Regional on Sat., Nov. 12 at Indiana University in Bloomington, IN. The meet serves as a qualifier for the NCAA National Championship hosted by Indiana State in Terre Haute, IN on Mon., Nov. 21.
The complete 2005 fall schedule is available at www.DaytonFlyers.com.
