The Sam Houston State Cross Country Team is preparing to travel to the Oklahoma State Cowboy Jamboree, in Stillwater, Okla. on Saturday for the its fourth meet this season.Head coach Greg Hinze said the team is running very well right now and is currently ranked sixth in the region.”It is still early in the year and we have about a month before we go to our conference meet, but (the team) has worked really hard,” said Hinze. “They are really focused and they are taking care of all the little things they need to take care of in order to achieve this year.”This weekend will be tough for the team since it will be competing against some of the top-ranked teams in the country right now, he said.”This will be a high-volume meet,” said Hinze “In other words, we have put a lot of work into this meet.””Arkansas and Georgetown are scheduled for the meet and both teams are ranked top 10 in the country,” Hinze said. “We are not going to be at our sharpest as far as racing goes, but it is all part of the overall training plan to get us ready to peak at the right time.”I think this will give us a chance to race against a higher level of competition than maybe what we have so far this year.”The team is in overall good health right now and is preparing for a big meet with a lot of competition, Hinze said.”I think the way to get better is by racing against people who are better than you,” he said. “I am just looking for us to take another step and get ready to compete in the conference meet because that is the one that matters.”Junior Raul Villarreal said the team has been able to maintain its goals for this year since a lot of upper-classmen returned to the team.”We did not really lose but maybe one person out of our top-five, and another guy stepped up who should have been in our top-five last year,” Villarreal said. “It is really like we had our top-five coming back and it only takes five to score.”Team members hope to place in the top 10 as they compete against some nationally ranked university teams, he said. Villarreal said his goal for the competition is to place high individually.”This meet is going to be stacked and it is going to have a lot of nationally ranked teams,” he said. “We are just looking at getting into the top 10 and that would be great.” Villarreal said the team is not thinking about the competition it faces and is doing what it always does to prepare for a meet.Other universities competing in the meet include: Abilene Christian, Air Force, Central Missouri State, Georgetown, Houston, Kansas, Lindenwood College, Mid-America Nazarene, Missouri, Southern, New Mexico, Oklahoma Baptist, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Oral Roberts, Southwest Missouri State, Southwestern Oklahoma State, Stephen F. Austin, Texas-Arlington, Texas Christian, Texas Tech, Tulsa and Wichita State.