COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – Following two weeks of competition, the Tennessee Tech men's and women's cross country teams head into a completely different type of challenge in their third outing of the 2014 season.

Tech will be among 29 schools running Saturday morning at the Commodore Classic, hosted at Percy Warner Park in Nashville by Vanderbilt University. The men will get things started at 9 a.m. CT with an 8K race, followed at 10 a.m. by a women's 5K contest.

With more than 250 runners scheduled to compete, the race is certain to be fairly congested. Much more congested, in fact, than last week's race which proved to be a head-to-head dual meet between Tech and the University of Indiana. The week before, Tech opened at the Carolina Invitational with a field of four men's teams and seven women's squads.

This week, the men' field will include 29 teams, including 16 Division I programs. The women's race will feature 26 teams including 17 Division I squads.

"Our runners have really enjoyed the first two weeks of the season, and this season will throw a completely different experience at them," said first-year coach Wayne Angel. "We've run against one of the better schools in the nation (Indiana), and we've faced some teams who are more on our level. This week, it will be all over the board as far as competition goes, and we'll really get a good feel about where our program stands."

Last week at Indiana, sophomore Brennan Huber overcame the tough course to post a personal best 8K time, finishing in 26:53. Transfer Geoffrey Sambu, running his first 8K race as a Golden Eagle, earned a Top 10 finish and established his Tech PR with a run of 26:09. Sophomore Sam Lariviere's personal best at that distance came last year at the Vanderbiilt meet with a time of 27:51, a number that is likely to fall this week after his efforts of the first two weeks this season.

None of Tech's women were able to dent their personal best marks last week at Indiana, while a week earlier Sarah Wilson set a new PR at the Carolina Invitational of 21:22 for the 5K race, and freshmen Baylee Balgemann, Anna Cooper, Lera McNamara and Lathie O'Niell established their collegiate best numbers, all of which will also be challenged this time out.

Among the teams scheduled to compete are two from the Ohio Valley Conference (Tennessee State and Belmont) in addition to the Golden Eagles. Also in the field will be four teams from the Southeastern Conference (Vanderbilt, Kentucky, Ole Miss, Mississippi State).

Other Division I foes will include Middle Tennessee State, Western Kentucky, Davidson, Lipscomb, Samford, Central Arkansas, Chattanooga, Memphis, Louisville, and Alabama State.

"Our teams have shown improvement over the first few weeks," Angel said. "Our times last week at Indiana weren't as good as the previous week, but the course at Indiana was tremendously more difficult. That was expected. What I liked most was how hard everyone competed both weeks."

Weather conditions for the race are expected to be cool, with a forecast high of about 75 degrees. It is also expected to be dry, which will be a huge departure from the races in the mist last week at Indiana, making the course slick and some tricky footing.

Complete results will be posted on TTUsports.com once they become available.