Unable to host a meet this weekend due to a lack of interest from other competing schools, the cross country teams will travel to Wisconsin on Saturday for the Jim Drews/Tori Neubauer Cross Country Invitational hosted by UW-La Crosse.

Women’s head coach Dick Lee said this weekend has been a “traditional date for lots of years” for Iowa State to host a meet but was unable to get enough interest from a minimum of four Division I teams. The team will travel instead to the Drew/Neubauer meet, which consists of mainly Division II and III teams.

The next closest meet was the pre-national meet hosted by Indiana State, which included roughly 95 Division I teams.

The men’s team, coming off wins at home and at the Midwest Collegiate Open, will face both top-ranked Wisconsin and Minnesota, who is ranked 17th.

“This will be a good meet for us,” said men’s coach Corey Ihmels. “It will solidify our squad and we can fine-tune some things for the conference meet.”

Having top-20 teams like Minnesota and Wisconsin will be make for a good run up front, Ihmels said.

Other Division I teams include Illinois State and North Dakota State.

Alfred Singoei and Grant Shadden will return to action after sitting out at the ISU 6K race.

Ihmels said the team has been training really well and the entire team is healthy.

For the women, Krysta Metz will be competing for the first time in a month after getting over an illness. Metz said she came down with a head cold but then got worse from a lack of sleep.

“I got myself rundown from a combination of things,” she said. “Sleep is definitely important.”

Metz said she doesn’t think she is quite back to where she was before she got sick but hopes to be there by the time the Big 12 Conference meet is underway.

As for the newcomers — Maddie Peck and Mackenzie Madison — Lee said their hard work in training will pay off next year in competition.

“It will take a year at this level of competition to see improvement,” he said.

The men’s 8K race will begin at 10:30 a.m. and the women’s at 11:30 a.m. Saturday.