While the Tennessee men’s and women’s cross country teams won’t have a home meet this season, the Big Orange harriers will make three appearances in the Volunteer State during the upcoming campaign, UT Director of Track & Field/Cross Country J.J. Clark revealed Thursday as he announced the 2012 schedule.

For the eighth-straight season, the Big Orange will have a unit debuting at the Belmont-VU Opener at Nashville’s Percy Warner Park, with the women running 4000 meters and the men tackling 5000 on Aug. 31. The Vols finished third at the meet in 2011, while the Lady Vols placed fifth.

Instead of the traditional home meet on the second competition date, Clark opted to send his troops back to Nashville for the Commodore Classic at Warner Park on Sept. 15. The race distances will be 6K for the women and 8K for the men in a competition that allows teams to preview the Vaughn’s Gap Course that will host the SEC Championships in October.

“There aren’t too many differences in our schedule from years past,” Clark said. “The biggest change is that rather than running in a home meet, we’ll have an opportunity to compete at the Vanderbilt course a couple of times. That venue will host the SEC Championships, so we’ll take advantage of that (course) being so close and go down there the first two meets.

... read the rest of the story by Subscribing now.