RUSTON – Following their season-opening dual meet loss to Stephen F. Austin on August 30, the Northwestern State men's and women's cross country teams head to the Louisiana Tech Mook Triple-Duals on Saturday morning.

Both teams will face off against Grambling, Jackson State, Mississippi Valley, Louisiana-Monroe, and the hosting Bulldogs and Lady Techsters while the men's race will also feature competitors from Arkansas-Pine Bluff and Jarvis Christian.

The men's four-mile race begins at 8:30 a.m. and the women compete in the 4,000 meters at 9:15 a.m.

The Lady Demons won this event the past two years, and returning runners Isabella Hudson and Jasmine Dansby will try to defend their title along with newcomers Bronwyn Buchanan, Nijha Composto, Olivia Sipes, and Olivia Slayter.

On the men's side, Darius Groves, Peyten Vidourek, Yannik Gerland, Alex Melcer, Mike Alukunyang, Blake Cantrell, Clayton Casner, and Robert Evans will represent the Demons, who finished second this past season.

Head coach De'Shalyn Jones expects her runners to be prepared and in shape for the meet, particularly the junior Hudson, who did not compete in their first meet because of a minor illness.

"Izzy is probably more eager than usual to step on the course, so I'm really excited to see what she can do," Jones said.

Jones felt that she and the team learned some key lessons during their opening meet in Nacogdoches, Texas, and were able to apply those in practice the past couple of weeks.

"I feel like we should have done a bit more race tempo, so this week we did some race tempo modeling in training," Jones said. " I just think if we stay focused and believe in ourselves a little bit more then we should be fine."

Jones is eager to see how her team competes against a deeper field of competitors compared to a meet against a single team.

"There will be some different teams and some runners that they don't know, so hopefully they can go out and relax and not be tense since you don't run as well when you're nervous," Jones said. "They should go out and do really well."

Following this meet, the men and women run again in two weeks in the Lake Charles Toyota Cowboy Stampede on Sept. 28.