VALDOSTA, Ga. – The Valdosta State men's and women's cross country team will head to Hoover, Ala. this Friday, Oct. 16 to compete in the University of Alabama-Birmingham Blazer Classic.
 
The women's team will run a 6K and is set to race at 10:55 a.m. EST against 13 other colleges. A trend for the women's team so far this season, half of the schools competing against the Blazers are Division I opponents, including Western Kentucky, Florida State, Arkansas, and Georgia State, to name a few. Along with these Division I programs, fellow Gulf South Conference schools racing against Valdosta State are University of Alabama-Huntsville and University of Montevallo. Senior Angie Cipriani, who set a new 5K personal best time at the Florida State Invitational on Oct. 2, 2020, will look to improve her 6K record of 22:46.4 which she set last year. Cipriani sits at number two for the fastest women's 6K time behind Tyra Holloway with a time of 22:29.8 set in 2015.
 
"There's a good opportunity to see how they stack up against certain schools in our conference," Valdosta State cross country head coach Todd Smoot said. "It will help us prepare for the conference championship on Oct. 31 and we'll have a better idea and a better handle of where we lay and can then prepare ourselves for that conference meet."
 
The men are set to race right after the women at 11:25 a.m. EST in the final race of the Blazer Classic. The men's team finished their last race with more than half of the team recording a personal best, most notably including junior Brishen House who set the second fastest 8K time in program history at 25:52.5, just five seconds off from the number one spot. After a strong start to the season, with overall team placements of first and fourth, Valdosta State is hopeful to feed their competitive flame during Friday's race and prepare them for the Gulf South Conference championship.
 
"I hope to see progress from where they stood at Florida State, and that's not necessarily a time improvement," Smoot said. "It is more so progressing their competitiveness. You can't compare times from course A to course B because there's different conditions and different footing, so it's very difficult to compare times but you can compare their intensity. They are systematically preparing themselves for conference. This race is not the ultimate race, but it is a steppingstone to get to the ultimate race for this season and progress is necessary."
 
Live stats will be available during the race at vstateblazers.com. Visit vstateblazers.com for information on both cross country teams and all of VSU's 12 intercollegiate athletic programs.