Kingsville - The Kingsville men's and women's cross country teams are headed to Romeoville, Illinois for the Lewis Crossover Invitational this Saturday - the teams' final competition before the Lone Star Conference Championship in a few weeks.

After exactly 21 days between competitions, the Javelinas will be back on the course for a highly competitive race against some of the nation's top teams. The day's races are set to have the best all-around competition that Kingsville will see all year. A total of 52 different teams hailing from 24 different states will make the trip to Romeoville to test their mettle before Championship season. 

The men's side will have 16 national ranked teams or teams receiving national votes, will the women's will have 12 - including three of the top five. All eight of the NCAA's regions are represented at the Invite with a total of more than 1,000 athletes. 

Though it was a full three weeks ago, TAMUK will be taking a lot of momentum from their last race into this one. In late September, the Kingsville teams posted a great performance at the Our Lady of the Lake Saint's Classic. At OLLU, the women ran the fastest average time in program history and the men put a pair of runners into the top five among individual finishers, and took second as a team.

The first Javelina of the day to race in Illinois won't have the benefit of that performance in his back pocket. In fact, freshman Nirmit Dahiya, the only runner on the men's team racing in the Men's Championship 8k, will be in his first ever collegiate race.

"I'm excited to see him open up his season," Assistant Coach Zach Hall said. "I want to see him compete. This race will mirror what regionals will look like in four weeks."

Just 45 minutes after Dahiya opens the day for TAMUK runners at 9:45 a.m., the women's team will be competing in the Women's Championship 6k race at 10:30 a.m.. The team will be running its full lineup.

"I'm looking for our front four to put together a solid race and we will have three women fighting for that fifth spot," Hall said. 

The rest of the men's team will follow not long after in the Open 8k race, where Hall hopes they can break the school's 8k average race time record.

A livestream of the event will be available at here.
Full live results will be available here.