South Carolina’s cross country team heads into one of the sport’s more established early-season tests this week, competing at the Adidas XC Challenge in the Raleigh, North Carolina area against a 16-team field.
The Gamecocks enter ranked No. 15 nationally, the second-highest-ranked team in the field behind host NC State, which sits at No. 1 in the preseason USTFCCCA poll. The meet is now in its 13th year in the Raleigh area, having built a reputation over that time as an early gauge of which programs are peaking and which are still finding their form — a useful data point for South Carolina as it builds toward the meat of its conference schedule later this fall.
The event, formerly known as the Wolfpack Invitational before its rebrand, awards a Championship Cup to the top boys’ and girls’ programs in its featured high school race, a tradition that has made it something of a landmark stop on the Southeast running calendar even beyond the collegiate ranks.
A strong result against a deep, nationally ranked field would give South Carolina meaningful momentum as the postseason picture in college cross country starts to take shape.
