LAKE CHARLES – The McNeese men's and women's cross country teams will be back in action this Saturday when they host the running of the Lake Charles Toyota Cowboy Stampede at the Enos Derbonne Sports Complex.
 
The women will kick off the event at 8:30 a.m. and run a 5,000-meter path while the men will follow with a four mile race at 9 a.m.
 
The Cowgirls dropped just outside this week's USTFCCCA South Central Region rankings after being in the top-15 for the first two rankings. They will have a great test this meet, having three regional ranked teams in attendance in No. 4 Houston, No. 7 Rice and No. 9 Texas AM-Corpus Christi.
 
The Cowboys still sit No. 8 in the USTFCCCA South Central Region rankings after another strong outing in the Rice Invitational.  They will also have stiff competition with No. 9 Houston to contend with, for the Cowboys edged out Houston two weeks ago for 3rd place at Rice.
 
"The depth of our group this year has been our main strength in the early part of the season, said head coach Brendan Gilroy. "Both groups have been training hard since they have returned to campus. They have been training through the first two competitions and from the results we have been progressing nicely."
 
"This one we will turn it up a notch, take the reins off and see how they react," said Gilroy. "With this event list as one of the McNeese SAAC's Gold Standard Events.  We are expecting other McNeese Sports teams in attendance."
 
McNeese will be hosting a total of over 200 College athletes and 400 high schoolers this weekend including Alcorn State, Grambling, Houston, Houston Baptist, Louisiana College, Louisiana Tech, New Orleans, Northwestern State, Prairie View, Rice, Texas A&M- Corpus Christi, Texas Southern, UL-Lafayette, and Xavier-Louisiana.
 
The Cowboys and Cowgirls will be back in action on October 19 when they travel to College Station, TX for the Texas A&M Arturo Barrios Invitational.