With the NCAA Championships on the horizon, the men’s cross country team travels to the University of Minnesota this weekend to compete in the NCAA Midwest Regional meet.

The Cyclones hope to finish in the top two in the region in order to receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Championships on Nov. 20 in Terre Haute, Ind. If they do not finish in the top two, the team will need to receive an at-large bid from the U.S. Cross Country Coaches Association to attend the NCAA Championships.

Last year, the Cyclones placed eighth in the Midwest, while the top five finishers in the region were awarded bids to the NCAA Championships. Coach Corey Ihmels said he wants the team to finish in the top four and said if it does, it go to nationals.

“Our regular season was pretty good,” Ihmels said. “We beat some pretty good teams, so I think if we’re third or fourth [at regionals], as long as nobody beats us that shouldn’t beat us, we should be OK to get into nationals.”

Entering the meet, the Cyclones are ranked fifth in the region. No. 20 Kansas, No. 15 Minnesota, No. 23 Oklahoma State and No. 28 Iowa are ranked one through four in the region, respectively. All four of the ranked teams ran in the NCAA Championships last year.

Although unranked, the Cyclones were receiving votes in the latest national poll released Oct. 31 and have been ranked in the top five in the Midwest region all season long.

Ihmels described the selection process as a complicated one in which teams are selected based on their credentials for the season and which teams they’ve run well against in previous meets.

“You can’t let anybody beat you that’s not supposed to beat you,” Ihmels said about the regional meet. “They take all the qualifiers, and then they start looking at the team that’s beaten the most ranked teams or teams that have automatically gotten into nationals.”

Sophomore Kiel Uhl was the lone representative for the Cyclones at last year’s NCAA Championships. Uhl qualified by excelling at the 2005 Midwest Regional meet as a freshman, finishing second out of 150 runners.

Uhl said he will not be satisfied with his performance this year unless he improves on his previous finish.

“This year my goal is to win the race,” Uhl said. “If you get second last year, the only way to improve is to win the race. I feel like something has to go wrong for me to not win the race.”

Uhl said it felt good to represent Iowa State last year but said it would be even better if he was accompanied by his team.

“It was a good experience. The problem was it was an individual effort,” Uhl said. “I feel like this year I have the chance to have some company, and that would be a lot better for the program.”

Ihmels agreed that receiving a bid for the NCAA Championships would be a great accomplishment for the team.

“It all boils down to this one meet now,” Ihmels said. “I think we’ve had a good two weeks of training, and last week went really well. We had some good weather, so I think the guys are definitely ready to go. Hopefully we can make that next big step for the program.”

The meet will be held at Les Bolstad Golf Course, where the team ran well in the Roy Griak Invitational earlier this season, placing fifth out of 34 teams. The race is a 10K and will begin at 12:15 p.m. Saturday.