Nov. 11, 2011
NCAA Regionals Homepage || USTFCCCA Regionals Homepage
Northeast Regionals Homepage || Host Site
Mid-Atlantic Regionals Homepage || Host Site
CENTER VALLEY, Pa. -- The NCAA Cross Country Regionals will run on Saturday throughout the nation with Patriot League schools competing in both the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic Regionals.
The NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regionals will be held Saturday at the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore in Princess Anne, Md., while the NCAA Northeast Regionals will be held Saturday at the University at Buffalo in Buffalo, N.Y. At both sites, the men's race will begin at noon and the women's race with follow at 1:15.
The NCAA Championships will be held Monday, Nov. 21, on the campus of Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Ind.
The Patriot League Champion Navy men lead the League in the Mid-Atlantic Region ranked fifth. American is seventh, Lehigh is 10th and Bucknell is 12th.
Navy was led at the Patriot League Championships by James Pearson, Ken Bunnell, Cody Rome, John Satterwhite and Robbie Patterson, who all earned All-League honors. Pearson finished third with a time of 25:14.2.
Lehigh's Evans Kosgei will look to make a return trip to the NCAA Championships and become the fourth Patriot League men's runner and first since Brendan Fennell (2006, 07) to qualify twice. Kosgei was one of two men and one of a Patriot League record four student-athletes who qualified last season. He led the men, placing 112th (31:17.7) in the 10K. Kosgei, a two-time Men's Cross Country Scholar-Athlete, was fourth at the Patriot League Championships this season, finishing the 8K in 25:15.5.
The League has no ranked men's or women's teams in the Northeast Region, where Colgate junior Chris Johnson, the League's individual men's champion, will race.
Navy also leads the League in the women's Mid-Atlantic Region poll, ranking seventh ahead of eighth-ranked Bucknell and 13th-ranked Lehigh.
The Mids won the Patriot League Championship behind the top performance of the individual champion, senior Jess Palacio. She finished the 6K in 21:56.1.
Lehigh senior Katherine Pierce followed in second place (22:05.4) and Colgate senior Elise DeRoo, a two-time League champion, finished third (22:08.5).
DeRoo was one of two women representing the League at the NCAA Championships last season. She and American senior Octavia Rinehardt both will have the chance to become the second woman to qualify for the NCAA Championships twice. They are among 11 women to have qualified from the League, but only American's Keira Carlstrom has qualified more than once. She did it three times from 2003-05 and has the League's best finish on the women's side, 16th in 2003.
At the Championships last season, DeRoo finished ahead of Rinehardt in the women's 6K race (100th, 21:20.5). Rinehardt placed 125th with a time of 21:31.9. DeRoo was the first female from Colgate to represent the League at the NCAA Championships. Rinehardt was the fifth female runner from American to represent the League.
American was the last Patriot League men's team to compete at the NCAA championships (2006), and the Bucknell was the last League institution to compete in the NCAA Women's Championship 11 years ago.
Thirty-one teams and 38 individuals qualify for both the NCAA Division I Men's and Women's Cross Country Championship. Eighteen teams automatically qualify to the NCAA race by finishing as one of the top two teams at any of the nine regional races. The remaining 13 at-large teams are selected by the NCAA Division I track and field subcommittee.
The top four runners at each regional meet not on an advancing team automatically move forward to the national meet to make up 36 of the individual qualifiers. The NCAA selection committee will select two additional at-large runners.
Results will be available after the races on Saturday at ncaasports.com, and the full field for the 2011 NCAA Cross Country Championship will be announced at Sunday.
