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LOWELL, Mass. – The UMass Lowell cross country teams face their first significant test of the season, Friday afternoon in Franklin Park, when they compete in the Coast-to-Coast Battle in Beantown hosted by Boston College.

"This is as good a meet as we are going to go to this year," according to Head Coach Gary Gardner.  "Everybody is so competitive.  You have some of the best teams in the region and some of the best teams in the nation.  This will be a great measuring stick to see where we are and where we need to go."

Twenty of the 28 schools sending teams are regionally ranked, seven are nationally ranked.  Syracuse is one of ten ranked in the Top 15 in the Northeast Region.    Syracuse men are number one in the region, the women's team is ranked second.  UMass Lowell men are ranked sixth in the Northeast, the women are unranked.

For the first time this season the coaching staff is "rolling everybody out" for the women's 5k race.  Two weeks ago the women's team approached the Pre-Conference Meet as a training exercise running in a pack at a controlled tempo.   Now the approach is different. 

"We need a front runner," said Gardner.  "We like to get our kids into big meets when they are younger so that they are not intimidated in those situations. Now we need to see how good our top runners are."

On the men's side of the equation UMass Lowell is using the 8k event as an opportunity to give younger members of the men's team a chance to gain experience in conditions in which they have rarely competed.  

"It will give our younger guys their first real glimpse at what our program is about," said Gardner.  "It will be a learning experience. They'll get to see what competition at this level looks like.  This is the real deal; they'll learn what it's like at the next level."

For many on both the men's and women's teams this event will be the most competitive and largest field they have run in.  And that in itself makes a difference.

"You can have 20-runners cross the finish line in a span of ten-seconds," according to Gardner.  "Every place and every second makes a difference.  You can tell kids what to expect, but until they experience it, it doesn't register."

A year ago UMass Lowell men finished sixth at the Coast-to-Coast and the women finished 11th.  The year before the women were fifth and the men seventh.

Friday's meet is the first in a series of significant tests building toward the conference championships and then the NCAA Championships.  Next weekend the River Hawk teams travel to Lehigh University to compete at the Paul Short Invitational on the 29th.  That meet like the Battle in Beantown is expected to attract top regional and national opponents.