The Iowa State cross country team heads down the final stretch of its season this Saturday at the Big 12 Championships in Colombia, Mo.

With both the men’s and women’s teams nationally ranked, coach Corey Ihmels is optimistic about the Cyclones’ chances.

“I’m excited about where we’re at and I’m excited to see how we’ll do this weekend,” Ihmels said. “We hit a little bit of a bump in the road at [the ISU] Pre-Nationals [Invitational] and didn’t run as well as we would have liked but I feel like training has gone really well and I think we’re really starting to come around at the right time.”

Last year, the ISU cross country course played host to the Big 12 Championships.

Senior Guor Marial, who later went on to earn All-American honors for the 2008 season, finished the 8,000-meter race sixth overall with a time of 24:15. Graduate Kiel Uhl finished seventh overall, just five seconds off Marial’s pace.

Sophomore Yonas Mebrahtu struggled in his first Big 12 Championship meet in his freshman campaign due to the cold temperatures. Mebrahtu, a native of Eritrea, Africa, who was then unfamiliar with the cold climate, finished 30th overall and failed to score points for the Cyclones by finishing sixth on the team.

“When I was running [last year], it was very cold. I couldn’t breathe,” Mebrahtu said. “This year is much better.”

The Cyclone men finished third overall in the meet, falling to Colorado by one point.

“Colorado has been a perennial power in cross country in the nation, and to come within one point of beating them on our home course was kind of tough to swallow,” Ihmels said in an interview earlier this season. “Even though it was tough to swallow on that day, it gave me an opportunity as a coach to have a teachable moment and say ‘every person counts and every point counts.’ It was really close, but we didn’t get it done and next time when we get that close in the race, hopefully we’ll come out on the other side.”

On the women’s side, true-freshman Meaghan Nelson and Dani Stack led the Cyclone women by finishing 33rd and 36th. Stack finished two seconds off Nelson’s pace.

“The one thing I think we really couldn’t do was stick together as a team,” said Nelson, a native of Cedar Rapids. “I know last year, there was a group of us that definitely ran together as a team. So I think we just want to try doing that again this year.”

The Cyclone women were without seniors Lisa Koll and Grace Kemmey, both of whom redshirted last season. Koll and Kemmey, both of whom have earned All-American honors, will be returning to give the Cyclone women an extra boost at this year’s event.

“It’s going to be really exciting,” Nelson said. “I think if we run to our potential [then] we can do some really good things. So I’m excited.”

The Big 12 Championships start Saturday at 11:00 a.m. in Columbia, Mo.

“We have high expectations, but we also have high goals,” Nelson said. “There’s a lot of stuff that we can accomplish if we do well. So it will be hard to do it but if we all run the way we want to, it can be done.”