PHILADELPHIA- The La Salle cross country teams will participate in the Big 5 Invite this Friday with the races taking place at Belmont Plateau. The men's 6k race will get underway at 5:30 p.m., with the women's 4k race set to begin immediately following that at 6 p.m.
 
This is the third year running that Penn, La Salle, Temple, Villanova, and St. Joseph's will take place in the event hosted by Temple. Last year La Salle finished in second place in both the men's and women's races.
 
The men's team returns twelve runners who ran in the event last season. The top two returners from last year's event are seniors David Ozarowski and Tim Flanagan. The duo finished in 18^th and 19^th place respectively with times of 19:07.9 and 19:11.7. Senior Ian Barnhill also returns after missing last season's race due to injury. In the 2013 running of the race he finished eighth in 18:55.02.
 
Newcomers Nick Libbi and Clint Corso also both look to build off of their strong Explorer debuts last weekend. Libbi finished 22^nd at the Lehigh Invitational while Corso finished close behind in 27^th place overall.
 
The women return twelve runners of their own from last year's race. The top three finishers last season for the Explorers were then freshmen Megan Connell (6^th, 14:35.4), Morgan Szekely (8^th, 14:41.3), and Emily Ward (9^th, 14:41.8). Szekely opened up the season last weekend by winning the Lehigh Invite thanks to at time of 21:44.5.
 
The Explorers continue their stretch of local meets as they head to the Main Line Invitational on Thursday with the race schedule to start at 5 p.m.