NOTRE DAME, Ind. — The University of Notre Dame men’s and women’s cross country teams will enter the season among the nation’s elite, with each squad ranking in the top 11 in the preseason USTFCCCA Cross Country National Coaches’ Poll released Tuesday.
The Irish men’s team, which finished 14th at last year’s NCAA Championships and captured the program’s first Atlantic Coast Conference Championship in 2018, comes in at No. 9 in the season’s first poll. The Irish will return all but one of their NCAA entrants this season, led by junior Yared Nuguse (who won national championships during the track season in the distance medley relay and the 1,500 meters), sophomore Danny Kilrea (who earned cross country All-America honors last season after finishing 33rd at NCAAs) and sophomore Dylan Jacobs (a former Foot Locker National Champion who joined Nuguse on the podium in the DMR).
The women’s squad rated at No. 11 nationally to start the season and hopes to build off an eighth-place finish at last year’s NCAA Championships and a runner-up showing at the ACC Championships. The Irish will be led by graduate student Anna Rohrer, a three-time cross country All-American who led the Irish with a 10th-place finish in 2018. Also returning is sophomore Jacqueline Gaughan, who scored for the Irish at the NCAA race in 2018.
The Irish return to the course for the first time in 2019 on Friday, September 6, at the Crusader Invitational at Valparaiso University.
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