The men’s and women’s cross country teams lined up in Terre Haute, Ind., for a high-intensity matchup against the nation’s elite runners at Pre-Nationals on Saturday.

The two fields, separated into four divisions, consisted of 48 nationally-ranked teams.

The men, running in the white heat, finished third with 182 points. The surprise winner of the meet, No. 20 UTEP (129 points), edged its way past No. 3 Colorado, No. 5 Stanford and No. 10 N.C. State.

“We definitely knew UTEP was good,” redshirt senior John Crews said, “But before the meet we were concentrating on Colorado and Stanford a little more.”

Crews, who led the Wolfpack with a 16th-place finish, ran the 8K course in 23 minutes and 41 seconds. He noted that the key to a higher team finish is a smaller time separation between the first and seventh runner.

“The team ran well, but we just need to run a little tighter,” Crews said. “A good spread is one that is about 20 seconds.”

At the meet State had a spread of nearly double that, coming in with 39 seconds between its first and final runners.

The women, running in the blue race, departed with a 10th-place finish.

Junior Brittany Tinsley and senior Angelina Blackmon led the Pack with 10th-place and 13th-place finishes, respectively.

“We have to work for everything we’re getting because our team is so young,” Blackmon said.

Blackmon praised the efforts of the two freshmen finishing in State’s top five: Colleen Wetherbee and Marika Walker. She also had high praise for Tinsley’s performance.

“Brittany said she wanted to do better, but she is always an overachiever,” Blackmon said. “She always leads everybody to believe that she has much more room to grow.”

The Pre-Nationals meet is a very important meet for teams hoping to gain at-large points that can help in qualifying for nationals. With the team’s finish ahead of ACC foes Virginia and Boston College, Blackmon said the team will benefit from its 10th-place finish.

“This will definitely help us out in the long run,” Blackmon said. “I think we’ll get a lot of criteria points for the qualifying meet.”

For the Pack, qualifying for the national meet is strictly based on the Southeast Regional, which will be held in Kentucky.

“Our region is not as difficult as the ACC,” Blackmon said. “Although we have one of the strongest conferences in the nation, some of those schools aren’t even going to be at regionals.”

Nonetheless, Blackmon said qualifying for the NCAA Championships will not be easy.

“The team has much more room to grow,” Blackmon said. “We just have to train harder.”