WACO, Texas -- Baylor cross country will be represented by junior Maggie Montoya at the 2015 NCAA Cross Country Championships Saturday in Louisville, Ky. The women's 6,000-meter race is slated for an 11 a.m. CT start at E.P. Tom Sawyer Park.

NOTABLES
- In 2014 at the NCAA meet, Montoya was the second-fastest BU runner, finishing 44th in 20:49.96.
- In 2015, Montoya has been the top BU runner in all five of her races and has finished no lower than 11th.
- Baylor last had an individual make the NCAA Championships in 2013 when Rachel Johnson qualified.
- Montoya is the eighth women's individual NCAA qualifier in program history.
- Montoya automatically qualified for the event by placing second at the NCAA South Central Regional Championships in a career-best time of 19:50.5. The runner-up finish earned Montoya a second-straight All-Region honor.
- Earlier in the year, she also earned All-Big 12 honors for a second-straight year by taking fifth at the 20th-annual Big 12 Cross Country Championships.
- The Rogers, Ark., product tallied the first Big 12 Runner of the Week honor of her career by placing 11th at the prestigious Wisconsin adidas Invitational Friday.
- In total the women's field features 31 teams of seven runners each and 38 individuals with everyone trying to finish in the top 40 to earn All-American status.
- Baylor's highest ever finish by an individual runner at the NCAA Championship was by Karin Ernstrom in 1999 with a 22nd-place finish. Meanwhile, Johnson and Natalie Nalepa were both fifth at the event as part of Baylor teams in 2014 and 1991, respectively.
- At Baylor, six different women's runners have earned at total of eight All-American honors.
- The full race will be offered in an online video stream at NCAA.com, along with live results.
- Complete results and a recap of the meet will be available on BaylorBears.com following the event.
- To stay current on all things Baylor cross country, follow the team on Twitter: @BaylorTrack.

FULL PREVIEW
By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider

Maggie Montoya was so close to All-America honors at last year's NCAA Cross Country Championships that she could have reached out and touched it.

The junior from Rogers, Ark., missed placing in the top 40 by an ever-so-slight 5.3 seconds, finishing 44th at last year's 6K race in 20:49.6.

"I was actually in an All-American spot until the last quarter-mile," said Montoya, who will get another shot at Saturday's NCAA Championships at Tom Sawyer Park in Louisville, Ky. "My goal going into the race is (being) All-American. Anything more than that is just the cherry on top."

Coach Todd Harbour, for one, believes Montoya is capable of doing far better than that.

She has finished in the top 15 in each of her five meets this fall, including winning the Bear Twilight Invitational, placing 11th at the prestigious Wisconsin Adidas Invitational and second at last week's NCAA South Central Regional in College Station with a personal-best time of 19:50.5.

"She really hasn't had a bad race," Harbour said. "She knows what she can do. She's become one of the best middle distance runners in the U.S. right now, so she just has to keep stepping up to that."

While the team failed to get out of the regional, placing fourth overall, Montoya nabbed the first of four individual spots. Arkansas' Dominique Scott, who was sixth at the NCAA Championships last year, ran away from Montoya in the last 600 meters and won the individual title in 19:35.3.

If anything, though, Montoya has proven that she can run with the best. At last year's meet, Baylor senior Rachel Johnson finished just ahead of Scott and fifth overall in 19:56.8.

"Rachel had an incredible, confident attitude going up there of, `Hey, I've got a shot,''' Harbour said. "Physically, Maggie's not that far off. But mentally, I'm not sure she's there yet, to where she looks at herself like, `Hey, I could win this thing.' . . . Maggie's moving to that place, little by little, and I think she'll be there. Hopefully, we'll take another step this weekend, and then track season she'll do it again." Unlike any other race, the national meet pretty much demands a fast start. In a field of more than 250 runners, it's easy to get left behind out of the gates and never catch up.

"You have to know your limits," Montoya said. "You know you're going to go out fast, but you can't take it out too fast, because then you still have (5,000 meters) to go. It's knowing that you have to go out fast and not get lost and buried in the pack of the pack, but not going out too fast."

Because of that, Harbour believes the middle distance runners have an edge on the longer distance runners in this 6,000-meter race.

"I don't care what people say, but distance runners are still a little handicapped at the race because of how it goes out. It goes out so fast," he said. "And those girls don't quite have the leg speed to get out and run that first (1,000 meters) in 3:03, 3:04. Middle distance runners like Maggie do. She's a sub-4:40 miler, so she has the ability to get out and run that first mile fast and still be OK, where sometimes the distance runners have to work through that large field of girls. That's always a challenge."

Montoya has shown that she can excel at the middle distances, finishing second in the mile at last year's Big 12 Indoor Championships and clocking a 4:41.0 anchor time in the 1,600 meters for a distance medley relay team that finished fourth at the NCAA Indoor Championships.

"She's got to stay within herself . . . but you don't want to see her back of the pack of the first 40 girls," Harbour said, "when she knows she could be up there a little higher. She's just got to find a good spot, get in it and go."

Without last year's senior duo of Johnson and Mariah Kelly running by her side, Montoya has had to step up and take the lead role for a young team. And she's played the part well, being the Bears' top runner at each of the five meets where she competed.

And now, she seems to be peaking at the right time.

"I felt so fresh during the (regional) race," she said. "I knew it was only eight days to (nationals). But if I was feeling fresh during that race, then I'm looking forward to hopefully feeling good at nationals. I've drastically decreased my mileage, so my legs are really, really fresh."

Later in the season, Harbour said, you typically "start cutting back and tapering a little bit" with the training workouts.

"We started last week, and she's not doing much this week," he said. "We did a real easy workout yesterday, so she should feel even better this week. I don't think she really extended herself at regionals. That was the game plan. Let's run easy, make sure we get as high a finish as we can for the team behind you, but make sure you get there individually in case the team doesn't get it done."

While she admits being sad that the rest of her team won't be with her for Saturday's 6,000-meter race, which starts at 11 a.m. CST, Montoya has a core of runners she can lean on with Rice's Cali Roper and Texas A&M's Karis Jochen, who finished 3-4 at regionals and are also going as individuals.

"Cali reached out to me and asked me if I wanted to warm up with her. And she was also going to reach out to Karis," Montoya said. "Interesting fact: Five years ago Cali, Karis and I all qualified for Nike Nationals as individuals together. And now, we're back there again. It will be good to have their company, but I'll still miss my team."