Gamecocks will travel to Nashville for Vandy’s Pre-SEC Invitational
After an outstanding performance at the Gamecock Invitational on Aug. 31, the South Carolina women's cross country team will head to Nashville this weekend to participate in the Vanderbilt Pre-SEC Invitational.
"The [upcoming meet] is a much higher level of competition," coach Stan Rosenthal said. "It'll be a good test for us to see where we are to where we're hopefully going to end up."
Rosenthal said more than 20 teams will compete and the goal is to be as high in the top half as possible.
"At this meet, we're hoping to crack the top three," Rosenthal said. "If we do that, then we'll have a phenomenal race."
However, there are some difficulties in preparing to face the other teams at the race. Some SEC schools that hosted their own invitationals early in the season did not have their fastest runners compete, in order to protect them from potential injury.
"It's hard to know where everyone else is because almost everybody that's going to be there hasn't actually raced for their team yet," Rosenthal said. "Teams like Ole Miss and Vanderbilt ... didn't race their top five [runners]. They ran, in effect, their 'B' team, so you don't know who's coming back or who's in good shape."
The Gamecocks hosted their own invitational nearly two weeks ago at Fort Jackson. South Carolina won the race, with 10 runners finishing in the top 15.
Rosenthal was particularly impressed by the performance of freshman Kayla Lampe.
"It was 91 degrees after the race finished," he said. "For Kayla to run as fast as she did in those kinds of conditions was really phenomenal."
Lampe finished the race with a meet record of 17:10.20, the best time by an SEC freshman for a 5,000-meter run this season. Her performance garnered league-wide accolades, as she was named SEC Cross Country Women's Freshman of the Week.
"I think Kayla's strength as a racer is that she doesn't seem to let the pressure of expectations get to her. She tends to be a little patient at the beginning," he said, noting that she pulls away from the competition in the latter stages of a race.
"She can't be as patient this week ... when you have 200 people starting at the same time," Rosenthal continued. "I do know that she's probably one of the 10 fastest people in the race."
Rosenthal explained that Lampe's race plan is to "get out with the lead pack ... and be able to stay there."
Lampe will be paced by teammate Chelsea France, a graduate student who transferred from UVA this year.
"She's been running step for step with Kayla in practice so I expect her to be ... hopefully in the top 10 at this race," Rosenthal said.
Junior Penny Boswell, a team captain, finished third at the Gamecock Invitational with a time of 18:46.50.
"Our goal for Penny is to be ... top 25 in this race, whereas our goal for the other two [Lampe and France] is the top 10," Rosenthal said. "So if you have Chelsea and Kayla in front and Penny in the middle and the others in the back ... fight[ing] to hold their spots, then we'll do really well."