Cross Country | 10/1/2014 8:49:00 AM

This week, the Dons women's cross country team travels to South Bend, Ind. to officially begin their pursuit of returning to the NCAA National Championships in the Notre Dame Invitational on Friday.

For the second-straight season the Dons are traveling to South Bend, where they will face some of the top programs in the country on a 5,000-meter course.

"This will provide our women with an opportunity to face out-of-region teams," says head coach Helen Lehman-Winters. "The purpose of competing here is to test our women in a competitive field and pick up a possible point to help us advance to the NCAA Championships in November."

Leading the Dons into Indiana will be veteran runners Elena Burkard, Jana Soethout and Kate Jamboretz.

All three women, who helped lead the Dons to a 18th place finish at nationals last season, have competed in just one race so far this season in order to rest for races that count toward qualifying for nationals.

During a second place team finish at the West Coast Conference Preview in September, Burkard, a junior, placed third, Soethout, a graduate student, placed fourth, and Jamboretz, a senior, placed 11th.

"We have a very strong trio with Elena, Kate and Jana," Lehman-Winters says. "All three of these women are capable of running in the top 20 of the field. We then will need several others from the rest of the team to step up and close the gap from 3-5 to ensure a quality team performance."

One runner USF will be relying on Friday and throughout the season is freshman Haley Dorris, who has already delivered impressive performance during her short collegiate career.

Dorris, in her first race with the Dons, took eighth at the USF Invitational and followed that performance with a 13th place finish at the WCC Preview.

Behind Dorris are mostly a mix of freshmen and sophomores, like freshman Catherine Clohesy, sophomore Ashley Moffett, and freshman Kelsey Nielsen, who the Dons are relying on after graduating four runners from last season.

In fact, only two Dons — Jamboretz and Burkard — competed in the Notre Dame Invitational last season.

"We definitely have a different squad competing this year," Lehman-Winters says. "We are excited about what we are bringing to the line on Friday. The bottom line is it is just another race, an opportunity to get better and test our fitness in some very good competition. We try and get our athletes to take the emotional part out of it, to stay and focus on competing and having fun. You run your best when you are fit, relaxed and excited to race."

With a young squad and several runners traveling halfway across the country as a team for the first time, what are Lehman-Winters expectations for Friday?

"Our goal is pretty simple for this weekend: finish as high as we possibly can in the field and beat some highly ranked our-of-region teams," she says. "We try not to put too much emphasis on team place and instead emphasize individuals competing for not only themselves but also for their team. It is all about staying in the moment and getting the most out of our fitness."