The LSU cross country teams hope for a little home track advantage as the Tigers and Lady Tigers are set to host the LSU Invitational at Highland Road Park on Saturday morning.

The Lady Tigers will try to build off a ninth place season-opening finish at the Commodore Classic at Vanderbilt last weekend. LSU senior Laura Carleton paced the team and finished fifth individually with a time of 21:14.53.

“I would like to improve on my time for last week,” Carleton said. “You can’t always see the improvement in the time, but I just want to feel like I’m getting faster week-to-week.”

The Lady Tigers won the LSU Invitational last season. Carleton won the race while redshirting and running unattached from the team.

Seniors Dakota and Brea Goodman also ran well in the opener, finishing No. 42 and No. 48, respectively. Junior Leigh-Ann Naccari finished No. 62.

On the men’s side, the Tigers will try to find their form at their home course after finishing, No. 19 out of 25 teams in last week’s season-opening meet. A season ago the Tigers finished second at their annual home meet.

“I think it is an advantage for us,” LSU coach Mark Elliott said. “But an advantage in cross country only does so much. The bottom line is that we know the course well, but we still have to compete.”

Only senior Roger Cooke, who placed No. 69, finished in the top-100 in the season opener. Elliott said he expects his team to run better with another week of practice and training under its belt.

The season-opening meet featured mostly Southeastern Conference competition, but this week, the Tigers will mostly compete against other Louisiana schools.

“The thing we like about this meet is that a lot of the local schools come,” said sophomore Philip Primeaux. “We get to run against guys that we know. It makes it a little more fun and that makes a difference.”

All members of both teams will run on Saturday. The women’s race will begin at 8:05 a.m. with the men’s race scheduled to start at 9:15 a.m.