Whether it's a race or a practice, Vanderbilt cross country has one goal in mind: run together.

The men's and women's teams hit the road today for the Southeastern Conference championships hosted by Mississippi State in Starkville, Miss., and keeping everyone close in the race will be crucial for ideal results.

Rita Jorgensen, a yearlong star for Vanderbilt, will lead the women's team in the 6K race. The sophomore has won several races and has recently finished in the top 40 of an over-280-person race at Pre-Nationals, setting a personal best of 21:12.

According to head coach Steve Keith, Jorgensen has put herself in position to run for All-Conference honors at the meet today. The team, meanwhile, is hoping for a finish in the upper tier of the conference.

"We're preseason ranked seventh and that kind of looks like what might happen, but we've got a chance to get fifth or sixth, knock off a team or two," said Keith. "Pack running is going to be really important for the women."

"We would like to finish in the top half in the SEC," Jorgensen said. "We know the third through seventh teams will be really closely paced, so we will have to really focus on passing that extra person at the finish line."

The men's team faces an especially stern test in SEC competition, and Keith said it about the men too: pack running will be essential for success.

"The men obviously want to try and group as well as they can," he said. "They've been doing a better and better job of that. Five guys within 15 seconds of each other would be a real nice goal."

Senior Rob Whiting said the team has focused on a tight-pack strategy in practice after what he said was a disappointing team performance at Pre-Nationals on Oct. 18.

"We had a few workouts between Pre-Nats and now when we were running some really fast intervals, and I think that's going to get us ready for the competition and more accustomed to running hard," said Whiting. "It was more consistent, so we had less stopping time, so (it was) continuous hard work."

"I think we've been running better together," he added.

In addition to its usual handicap in SEC play as the smallest and only private school, Vanderbilt also is the sole university to not offer scholarships for its runners, making its achievements all the more impressive. Thus, topping any of the competition in SEC play would be an outstanding achievement.

"I think we'd be disappointed if we didn't beat Ole Miss and we have a real shot at LSU," Whiting said. "Ideally, we want to pick off these two teams. Being a non-scholarship team, that'd be a big, big statement for the program."

Whatever happens today, both teams will race again at the NCAA Regionals on Nov. 15 in Maryland, Tenn., where they will attempt to qualify for Nationals.