This weekend the Massachusetts men’s and women’s cross country teams will travel to Dartmouth to open their season at the Dartmouth Invitational. Men’s head coach Ken O’Brien is entering his 42nd year as head coach of the team, and is one of only four coaches to ever serve as head coach of the program.

In the preseason poll, the men’s team was picked to finish third in the conference, where they finished last year tied with Duquesne, and the women are expected to finish sixth, also where they finished last year.

The men’s team will be led by their two seniors, Nils Fischer, and Jesse Regnier. Regnier is the team’s captain for the third year in a row, but is not the only leadership on the team.

“We have a lot of leadership on the team, and we will be looking to pool from all of it to make a leadership counsel each week,” O’Brien said

The men’s team has an extremely strong group of sophomores and juniors who give promise for the future of the program.

“[They’re] really coming into their own, and will be a centerpiece of what should be a great team for the next few years,” continued O’Brien.

The strong centerpiece of the team may hinder some of the new members of the team getting some experience this year.

“With our strong team, the freshmen will not get too much of a chance to compete at the top level, but will be a big part of the mix in the upcoming season,” stated O’Brien.

O’Brien also mentioned that as of now, there are four very strong teams in the Atlantic 10 Conference, UMass being one of them, and he expects this team to be near the top when the postseason arrives.

Like the men’s team, the women also have two seniors on their squad, which is made up primarily of sophomores. However, they do have 11 returning high-level competitors who will look to lead the team. The Minutewomen hope to make some noise in the conference this year while gaining vital experience to become an elite squad in the coming seasons.

Although UMass lost Christina DeRosa to graduation, the Minutewomen return all-conference athlete Shiyi Zan, who finished thirteenth at the Dartmouth Invitational a year ago.

The Minutemen are in good shape with two preseason all-conference athletes in Andrew McCann and Jesse Regnier. At the Dartmouth meet in 2007 McCann finished seventh and Reginer 13th.

Things look extremely promising for this season and upcoming seasons for both the Minutemen and Minutewomen.

After this weekend’s meet at Dartmouth, both squads will return home to compete against Maine and Vermont. The men will also be competing against Colgate and Connecticut.

Sam Grossack can be reached at [email protected].