The men’s and women’s cross country teams were victorious in their first meets at DePaul, and senior Jayne Grebinski took home the individual honors for the women.

Grebinski will look to claim victory in her encore performance this Saturday — a 3.1-mile race at the Midwest Cross Country Meet in Kenosha, Wis.

“West Virginia has some solid top runners,” Grebinski said of the No. 4-ranked team in the country. “I’ll be looking to them for some good competition.”

Coach Mike Nelson said this event will be tough for Grebinski to win because West Virginia has two or three runners with a shot at All-American status. If she runs close to them, he said, Grebinski should have All-American status.

As for his men, Nelson said the 5-mile race Saturday may be the first of this distance for many of the freshmen. Nelson won’t let the freshmen’s inexperience alter his expectations for the team, especially junior Nick Szczech.

“I would like to see Nick finish in 25 minutes or less, weather conditions permitting,” Nelson said. “I’d also like to see our fifth man finish in 26 minutes or less, or within one minute of Nick.”

Junior Brice Cleland is one of the runners expected to finish within one minute of Szczech. After the last meet, Nelson said he wanted Cleland finishing closer to sophomore Blake Johnson, who is the team’s No. 2 runner behind Szczech. Cleland also aspires for that and more.

“Eventually I want to finish ahead of Blake,” Cleland said. “Then, if I pass Blake, I’ll work to finish ahead of Nick.”

To get an idea of the work Cleland needs to put in for that happen, he finished 18.5 seconds behind Johnson and 42 behind Szczech in the first meet of the season.

Cleland hopes to catch up with Johnson and Szczech as he continues to improve his endurance after a knee injury limited his ability to train over the summer.

As for who Cleland and his teammates will compete against, Nelson could not confirm exactly who will be there but said Louisville and West Virginia — with just a women’s team — will be two of the 12 or 13 teams competing.

Cleland said it’s that much more important to do well this weekend with two Big East Conference members there.

“It would be great to make a statement for ourselves against other Big East teams and to prove that we’re going to compete with them in Big East competition,” he said.

In addition to the exposure to Big East competition this weekend, Marquette gets a chance to experience the course that will host the 2009 Big East Championship on Oct. 31.