It's a later start than normal, but this Saturday morning, the University of Minnesota Duluth will finally get its 2014 women's cross country season off the ground at the St. Olaf College Invitational in Northfield, Minn.

UMD, which was ranked fourth in the latest United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association Division II poll, are bursting with depth as 14 letterwinners return from last year's Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference and NCAA II Central Region champions. That includes six of the seven runners who strutted their stuff at last November's NCAA II Championships -- All-American sophomore Samantha Rivard, Alexandra Rudin (one of only two seniors on the team), juniors Hannah Jocelyn, Hannah Olson and Erica Seidenkranz and sophomore Breanna Colbenson.  Rudin and Olson will serve as the Bulldog team captains this fall.

Joanna Warmington, the 2013 USTFCCCA Central Region Coach of the Year who is beginning her fifth season at the controls of the Bulldog women's program, talked about the upcoming season with umdbulldogs.com.