Syracuse’s low-key meets are over. Now, it’s time for the Orange harriers to prepare for bigger, more important meets that are fast approaching.

The Paul Short Invitational isn’t a ‘rust-buster’ like the first two meets SU participated in this fall. It’s the real deal, with top-ranked teams Georgetown, Villanova and Providence competing.

But SU head coach Chris Fox has kept expectations high on both the men and women’s sides.

‘If we’re in the top three in both races, then I will be pleased,’ Fox said.

The men’s and women’s cross country teams will travel to Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., this weekend to compete in the Paul Short Invitational. This meet will be the teams’ first chance to run against some top-ranked schools in the nation. Syracuse’s men’s and women’s teams both placed first in each of the Orange’s first two meets in Hamilton, N.Y., and the SU runners are excited to see some tougher competition this week.

‘I’m definitely excited to go run a big race and see how we stack up against some of the best teams in the country this weekend,’ redshirt freshman Andrew Palmer said.

As always, the obvious team goal is to win, but this meet is about getting a chance to run against Big East rivals and top-ranked teams nationally, junior Sarah Pagano said.

‘I’m really excited because I know we have a really good team this year,’ Pagano said. ‘It will be fun to travel and compete against really good schools like Georgetown and Providence to see where we are in the Big East.’

Having the opportunity to race against top schools so early in the season is a big advantage for the SU harriers.

Fox said he expects his runners to be pumped to get a taste of top competition already. This week’s race is pretty important, he said.

But Fox also stressed that the Orange’s enthusiasm needs to be tempered slightly because it is only September. It’s still early in the season to be putting a lot of emphasis on the meet as far as the season goes.

‘Our goal is to beat ranked teams, teams that are ranked in the Top 25 in the country is important,’ Fox said. ‘We have a really big meet two weeks after Lehigh, so we will start to get pretty serious. This is still a little preseason for us.’

Prior to this meet, runners participated in two other preseason meets, both held at Colgate University.

Runners recovering from injuries, less experienced teammates and some top runners competed at these meets during the month of September. They worked as two tune-ups for the bigger races to come.

Fox said performances in those meets and hard work at practices determined the travel team for the Paul Short Invitational.

‘For this meet we’re allowed to run 10 people in the varsity race, and we’re allowed to run as many as we want in the second race,’ Fox said. ‘We will probably take 20 men and 20 women this weekend.’

After gauging the team’s performance at the consecutive Colgate meets, Fox said he is hoping to see normal improvement from everybody.

‘Nobody had really bad days or anything, but we need to make progress every two weeks and hopefully they have,’ Fox said.

Fox’s top-three goal will be a tough task with top schools from all over the country racing. But that is what the Orange hope to achieve.

And that’s where the expectations sit for all the SU harriers.

‘We’ve done a lot of work to get us ready to race at this meet,’ Palmer said. ‘These next races are all that really matter.’

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Published on September 28, 2011 at 12:00 pm