LAKE CHARLES—The new-look Northwestern State cross country teams are excited to begin their season when they take the trip down Louisiana Highway 117 for the McNeese State Opener.

The women start their race at 5:30 p.m. and the men follow at 6 p.m. on Friday.

This is the third straight season NSU heads to the McNeese State Opener and fourth in the last five, as well as heading to McNeese at any point during the season every season since 2013 except for 2020 when the season was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The men retain the most, as five return from last season's team, while the women are sporting a brand-new team with seven freshmen making up the roster.

"We are very excited," head coach Alex Wills said. "It is a very young group, so there's a lot of unknown, especially on the women's side. We're ready to go out there and see what everybody is capable of doing. We're treating this as a time trial."

Gone are the dynamic tandem on the men's side of John Klein and Korbin Shumate, but the five returners—Mason Bayne, Kaden Elliott, Andrew Kent, Owen Rue and Selton Sanders—improved a great deal as the season went on last year.

The group does not have a senior on the team, but Bayne, Elliott and Rue are coming into their third season with the program.

In his first collegiate race at the 2025 McNeese Opener, Kent made his mark, placing eighth with a time of 16:32.8 in a 5K. He posted a season-best time of 27:29.8 in the 8K at the Watson Collegiate Classic last season toward the end of the season and clocked a 27:41.9 at the conference meet.

"Drew has been working extremely hard from the spring into the summer," Wills said. "We're extremely excited to see what he is capable of this year. We have some good expectations and goals coming into this season and as long as he keeps doing what he's been doing and staying healthy, the sky is the limit for him."

On the women's side, seven freshmen make up the team: Shelby Burgin, Crystal Godfrey, Nala Mitchel, Peyton Pirie, Abby Poche, Mac Tingle and Andie Claire Woodhead.

Wills is confident in the abilities of all seven runners but does not know who is going to run the best, as all have the ability to finish first among the Lady Demons, as they aim to surprise in the conference.

"Depending on how they are feeling that meet, it could be anyone's day," Wills said. "We kind of joked that we are doing a PR King/Queen of the Meet because this year, we could have multiple PRs happening in a meet and it just depends on who has the biggest PR that day."

Godfrey, a runner from Caddo Magnet High, broke the school record with a time of 2:31 in the 800-meter run at the Captain Shreve Gator Relays before finishing 81^st at the 2025 cross country state meet with a time of 24:27.9.

Poche helped lead Buckeye High to three district championships in track and a fourth-place finish in state as a senior in cross country, while Tingle made history at North DeSoto High, as she is the first athlete from the school's history to ever sign in cross country.

"With this meet, the big thing is going out and getting a little race experience and seeing what kind of shape we truly are in right now to build off of. We are not expected to finish very high in the conference, so it's nice to have these kids go out there with no expectations and let loose and set what we can do and build off that."

Following the opening meet, NSU hosts a meet for the second consecutive season, welcoming runners for the NSU Demon Invitational on Sept. 11 for their second of four meet before the Southland Conference Championships on Oct. 30.