The University of Minnesota Duluth Cross Country teams return to action this week in the Twin Cities for the 2023 Roy Griak Invitational, following sweeping first place performances at the Bulldog Open.

The Griak Invitational, hosted by the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, welcomes a plethora of teams spanning from NCAA Division 1 down to high school. The course will feature a 8k trail for the Division 2 Men's race and a 6k trail for the Division 2 Women's race around the Les Bolstad Golf Course, a familiar venue where the Bulldogs raced in the Oz Memorial just a few weeks ago.

The Bulldogs look to continue to show their strength as a unit against some of the other top programs and improve upon their performance. Last year, the Women's team finished first overall in their division with an average team time of 22:55 in the 6k race. The Men's team finished seventh overall with an average team time of 26:36 in the 8k race.

UMD Women's Cross Country looks to some of their other senior runners this year since losing their top scoring runner from last year's Griak, Cailee Peterson. Senior Maddie Verkerke returns to the course as UMD's second place finisher from last year, where she posted an average mile time of 6:05.6 and a total time of 22:43.0. Other top finishers from last year to look out for will be graduate student Julia Nielsen, senior Lauryn Renier, sophomore Elizabeth VanLoon, and senior Franny Seidel.

UMD Men's Cross Country has all five of their top five finishers from last year returning for another go around at the Falcon Heights course. 2023 Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC) Athlete to Watch Jack Van Kempen returns as UMD's top scorer, where he posted an average mile time of 5:16.7 and a total time of 26:14.3. Last year's scorers to also watch out for will be graduate student Lucas Selman, senior Austin Antony, senior Owen Dickenson, and senior Nick Jacobson.

"Feeling really good about both men and women heading into Friday, I think it just brings a lot of good memories for a lot of them from their high school days, early running days, and it's just something that they can look back upon. I think it is a very good opportunity for them to just see how much they have grown but to also compete against some really great competition." - Head Coach Brette Jensen

The competition looks to get going in Falcon Heights on Friday with the Division 2 Men's race starting at 11:30 AM and the Division 2 Women's race starting at 12:15 PM. For  more information about the event, please visit the event page here.