The men’s cross country team will travel to ISU this weekend to race in the pre-nationals meet, its final tune-up before the Big 12 championships.

Travel to ISU, you ask? Yes. Indiana State University, located in Terre Haute, Ind., will play host to the pre-nationals meet at 11 a.m. Saturday.

The pre-nationals meet is one of the largest organized meets in the country each year, so large that the field must be split into two separate races. The men’s field has a whopping 86 teams competing.

Coach Corey Ihmels said he is excited to see what his team can accomplish and looks forward to the team’s final meet before the Oct. 27 Big 12 championships in Lawrence, Kan.

“I am really excited about this group,” Ihmels said. “We have everyone healthy and I really feel this group becomes closer each week. They have been very focused on the task at hand and I am really looking forward to the next month or so.”

Ihmels added that being able to compete against some of the top-ranked teams in the country will be a good challenge for his No. 24 ranked Cyclones. Seven of the top 10 teams in the country will be racing in the meet, including Big 12 powerhouses No. 3 Colorado and No. 10 Oklahoma State.

“This will be a great indicator of where we are at,” Ihmels said. “We still have two weeks until [the Big 12 championships] so it will be a good barometer of what we need to work on. We have high expectations and want to have a very solid performance.”

The most important thing that the team can take from the meet is the experience of running with some very competitive teams, said sophomore Kiel Uhl.

“I’m looking forward to getting a good opportunity to run with some good competition and get a good feel for what nationals are going to be like,” Uhl said.

Uhl added that the team is not as concerned with where it finishes as it is with proving to itself and other coaches that it deserves to move up in the national rankings.

“If anything, we feel like it’s kind of an under-ranking – we still have to prove ourselves,” Uhl said of the No. 24 ranking. “Rankings are rankings, they don’t mean anything if you can’t go out there and compete.”

Indiana State will also play host to the national meet on Nov. 20, which will consist of a select 31 teams and 38 individuals, based on competition at the nine regional sites.