A new season begins Friday for the ISU men’s and women’s cross country teams at the Big 12 Championships in Waco, Texas.

Unlike other sports, cross country doesn’t take into account what a runner has done over the course of the season.

“How you place in conference is based on that one meet,” said women’s coach Dick Lee. “It’s one day, one meet. It’s our conference tournament but it’s just one shot and one race.”

At the Tori Neubauer Invitational at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse on Oct. 15, the women’s team finished ninth out of 22 teams.

“The kids felt that they could have run better [at UW-La Crosse],” Lee said.

“If we had three kids run 30 seconds faster, we’d have finished third or fourth at the meet. We still need improvement from that meet to this meet to accomplish what we want to.”

Just as she has done all season, freshmen Lisa Koll was the top finisher for the women’s team, placing seventh out of 358 competitors.

Lee said Koll has a chance to finish somewhere in the top 15 to 25 if she runs well.

“To finish in the top 20, you’d be running really well,” Lee said. “She’ll be nervous but that’s not a problem for her. It’s good to have nervousness; it’s a more important meet. That’s part of athletics – the bigger the meet, the more the pressure.”

Lee said several teams have outstanding individuals who make up a strong upper tier of the Big 12. He said the conference is split in half in terms of talent, with a first group of six and a second group of six.

The first group of six includes defending national champion Colorado, currently ranked 10th in the nation. Right behind Colorado is the conference meet’s host, Baylor.

“If there’s a team that could challenge Colorado, it would be Baylor, who’s currently ranked 13th,” Lee said. “Colorado, Oklahoma State, Baylor, Missouri, Texas Tech and Nebraska should be the top six teams based on how the season has gone so far.”

That lumps the Cyclones into the back half of the conference with Kansas, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Texas and Texas A&M.

“In the back, there’s only 30 points that separates four or five teams,” Lee said. “If we can score 175, that can put us in the seventh- or eighth-place range.”

The men’s team placed fourth out of 17 teams at the Jim Drews Invitational, also held at UW-Lacrosse on Oct. 15. Wisconsin won the meet and was followed by Minnesota and UW-La Crosse.

Kiel Uhl was the top performer again, placing sixth out of 347. Both Koll and Uhl have been the top Cyclone performers at every meet this season.

As a freshman, Uhl has high expectations.

“Going into this weekend, he wants to be top-10. He’ll battle with those guys to see where he finishes,” said men’s head coach Corey Ihmels.

As a top-five team in the nation, Colorado is favored to win the conference. Kansas, Oklahoma State and Texas are also ranked.

Last season, the team finished sixth in the conference. This year, Ihmels hopes to improve on that.

“A goal of ours is to finish fourth or fifth in the conference,” he said. “To do that, we’d obviously have to beat a ranked team. If we’re not [fourth or fifth], we’ll be disappointed.”

– ISU Media Relations contributed to this story