First year head coach Chas Davis has his teams running a trio of meets within the state of Nebraska before branching out across the Midwest later in the fall. The Bluejays kick off the 2009 season when they co-host the Creighton/UNO Invitational on Saturday, September 5, at Chili Greens Golf Course in Omaha. Two weeks later they will travel to Lincoln for the Woody Greeno/Nebraska Invitational. The Jays will finish the month with a trip to Crete, Nebraska, to run in the Dean White Invitational at Doane College.
Flip the calendar to October and the Jays are on the move. First for Davis’ men’s and women’s teams is a Friday afternoon meet in South Bend in the adidas Notre Dame Cross Country Invitational on October 2nd. The following weekend the Jays will run in the Tim Young Open hosted by the University of South Dakota.
Davis’ teams will spend the end of October shuttling between Omaha and Peoria, Illinois. On October 16, the Jays will participate in the Bradley Classic. Then, following a week off, Creighton will hit the road for another trip to central Illinois. The stakes will be greater during their second visit to Newman Golf Course in Peoria, though, as Bradley will host the Missouri Valley Conference Champions on Halloween Day.
The men’s and women’s teams then head to Springfield, Missouri, for the NCAA regional meet on November 14. Should any Jays advance, this year’s NCAA Cross Country Championships are held in MVC territory: the title races take place in Terre Haute, with Indiana State playing host on November 23. In fact, Creighton’s final four races all take place in Valley cities.
In all, they will be running in eight meets, on seven different courses, across five different states.