Texas Tech Traveling to Ames for Big 12 Championships

LUBBOCK, Texas – Texas Tech cross country will be traveling to Iowa State this Friday for the Big 12 Championships.

The Red Raiders are coming off a 2017 title race where the men placed fifth while the women took home eighth. Tech's men's squad is returning three of their five scoring runners from last year, plus standout Miguel Bautista, who is coming off a redshirt year after finishing runner-up in the 2016 Big 12 Championships. The women's side does not have a returning scorer, but the young squad has shown steady improvement at tough meets in recent weeks.

While the Red Raiders have run against most of the other conference squads so far this season, there are some they have yet to get a glimpse of. Head coach Jon Murray outlined the favorites for the meet.

"Iowa State for men and women, I would say, are the favorites," Murray said. "We saw them a month ago and they ran very well at the meet in Wisconsin. Oklahoma State has great tradition and they'll provide good competition."

After the top, though, Murray believes the rest of the spots are up for grabs:

"After that, it's pretty much open," said Murray. "Texas should be in the top three, then it's really open. There will be a lot of people fighting it out and we will see what we can do. We haven't seen teams like Kansas and Kansas State yet."

For Murray, he is excited to see what the team can do against everyone else, saying, "It's been fun to see what we can do on paper, but now it's time to see what we can do in the meet."

Texas Tech will be looking for Miguel Bautista building off his run from the other week's Arturo Barrios Invitational where he finished third with a time of 23:55.5. Bautista was in the hunt for the win with two runners from Oklahoma State, as all three blew out the rest of the course.

For the women, they'll be looking forward to yet another strong finish. In College Station, four Red Raiders finished within the top-75.

Friday's championship meet will be kicked off by the women at 10 a.m., and the men will follow at 11 a.m. The meet will be streamed here, and live stats will be available here.

Texas Tech Traveling to Ames for Big 12 Championships

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Players Mentioned

Miguel Bautista

Texas Tech University Athletics