The Iowa State women’s cross country team is on a roll right now after winning both the Big 12 Championship and the NCAA Midwest Regionals these past weeks. Now the team looks to carry the momentum through the NCAA National Championship, this saturday in Louisville, Kentucky. The Cyclones will be facing all of the top teams throughout the country.

The team shined this past week here in Ames at the NCAA Midwest Regionals with 90 points. The second closest team was Oklahoma State who had a score of 103. This dominant performance by the Cyclones moved them up six spots to 14th overall nationally.

“Regionals was a great race,” said freshman Amanda Vestri. “Coach’s motto for us was to be tough, be warriors, fight harder and race smarter. It was nice running along side Annie [Frisbie] and Cailie [Logue].”

The youth of this team has been the key for their success. The whole team will all be coming back next year, so seeing the team do this good this early is huge.

The weather was a factor last weekend, with the cold weather affecting the race. The team is expecting warmer weather in Kentucky, but there is a chance of rain showers on the day of the race. The team is not letting the weather affect their mood for this weekend.

“We are ready for this weekend,” said junior Annie Frisbie. “We are excited to compete against the rest of the nation and prove to them that we belong. We can not take this moment for granted. We will not let the weather affect our worth ethic.”

Coach Andrea Grove-McDonough has stressed to the girls that they have to run their race. They have to focus on their game and not let the outside factors affect them. The sport of cross country is a team sport and that is what this team stresses about.

“We have a young team full of great leaders,” Grove-McDonough said. “The girls need to focus on their race and not do anything special out there. They need to just run a solid race and leave everything they have on the field. The key for the girls is to improve like they have been doing this whole postseason.”

The cross country team has been using the same motto the football team introduced this year which is, “Raise the Standard.”

“I do not want to sound like a broken record when I say this but we want to raise the standard for our team,” Grove-McDonough said. “We want to inch back into the top-10 and we have a chance to do that following the NCAA Championships.”

The NCAA Championships is the last stop for the Cyclones this season. It would be a historic achievement if the girls win the NCAAs after winning both the Big 12 Championship and the Midwest Regionals.

“We want to win for each other,” Frisbie said. “The team is unselfish and that has been the key to our success this year. If we keep this consistency then the sky’s the limit for us.”