RAPID CITY - The Greater Dakota Conference cross country meet today at the Elks Golf Course should serve as a nice little pop quiz before the big season-ending examination at the state meet at the end of the month.

The Sioux Falls Roosevelt boys and girls head west to defend their 2007 team titles, with the Rough Rider girls once again looking to be the race favorites.

"I think you'd have to consider them the odds-on-favorites in the girls' race," Rapid City Stevens head coach Forry Flaagan said. "Roosevelt is very solid. Their quality depth is just exceptional."

The top three girls from last year's race at Sioux Falls' Tuthill Park are back this year for the race at the Elks. Roosevelt's Bailey Breems is the defending champ and Sturgis' Madeleine Takahashi (second) and Roosevelt's Erin Hargens (third) are also back. In addition to Breems and Hargens, the Rough Riders also return Megan Brown (fifth) and Seanna Kautz (16th).

The Raiders - led by Annie Pfeifle and Sarah Coomes - should be right on the Rough Riders' heels in the girls' team race.

"I think our kids are going to run well and you never know what can happen," Flaagan said. "If somebody slips up anything can happen."

Flaagan calls Takahashi, Breems and Hargens the girls to beat in the individual race, but also tabs Kautz, Pfeifle and Coomes as runners to watch.

"I think you've got to say that Takahashi is the favorite, though," Flaagan said. "She's earned that."

Flaagan feels that his boys - led by the trio of Riley Coates, Thomas Kjerengtroen and Nate Richardson - should be considered the favorite on the boys' side after beating every GDC team they've seen in meets so far this season.

"The only mystery at this point is Sioux Falls O'Gorman, we haven't seen anything of them," Flaagan said. "They have the potential to be pretty good."

While there are plenty of variables heading into any race, Flaagan is happy to be running for this conference title on home turf. He knows the long bus ride from one side of the state to the other isn't the best way to get ready for a race.

"We're right where we want to be, part of which is doing this thing at home instead of having to drive across the state in the morning and then run," he said. "It's a real drawback to have to go to a championship and ride the bus all day. It's not so much the trip but the timing of the travel. You sit on the bus all morning and no matter what you try to do to break it up it affects you."

Flaagan tabbed Sioux Falls Washington's Josh Heitkamp (third at last year's GDC), Sturgis' Damien Schuster (fourth), Roosevelt's Jake Arechigo (fifth), Sioux Falls Lincoln's Brian Wiles (sixth) and T.J. Gleason (18th) and Spearfish's Jared Hicks (14th) as runners to watch in the individual race.

Wiles and Gleason have Stevens connections through their parents. Wiles' mother, Cindy Sargent, was a three-time state champ for the Raiders, while Gleason's father, Greg, ran for the Raiders and graduated in 1986.

"We switched positions with Lincoln in the draft," Flaagan joked, noting that three of his runners, Mikayla Becker and Annie and Danny Pfeifle, all have parents who ran at the Sioux Falls school.

Familial connections aside, Flaagan says the meet is going to be exciting.

"It really should be a good meet," he said. "If the weather holds and stays the way it is, it will be almost ideal conditions. I'm looking forward to it."