Clarksville, Ark.-Four members of the cross country team will head to the NCAA III South/Southeast Regionals held November 14 at Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina.
The men will be represented by David James, Tristan Cooper and Jeremy Provence. Tadera Garland will represent the women’s team. James, who finished sixth overall at the American Southwest Conference Championships with a time of 28:36.44, was named to the All-Conference First Team. Cooper followed with a 28:46.80 time to earn a spot on the All-Conference Second Team. Jeremy Provence finished 19th overall with a time of 30:45.64.
“The men did very well at the ASC Championships,” said Head Coach Brian Hull. “We improved our times from a year ago. This year, David improved his time and he is our first First Team All-Conference performer since 1997. Cooper moved up seven spots from last year and Jeremy moved up from 30th last year to 19th this year. All three of these guys ran last year at regionals in Seguin, Texas.”
Garland was Ozarks’ top finisher at the ASC Championships running a 30:39.01, good enough for 47th overall.
“Tadera represented our team very well at the ASC championships,” said Hull. “This will be a tremendous experience for her and a great way to reward her for achieving her goals throughout the year.”
The top-two teams from both women’s and men’s regional meets automatically advance to the national championship in Cleveland, Ohio, November 21. The third-, fourth- and fifth-place regional finishers are eligible for at-large berths into the 32-team national championships field. In addition, the top-seven individuals at the regional meets advance to the national championships. All seven members of the two automatic qualifiers will be removed from the results and the remaining individuals not on a qualifying team will be renumbered to determine individual national qualifiers. The Guilford race will be 6K for the women and 8K for the men.
“We will see some outstanding competition at this race,” said Hull. “It is great exposure for Ozarks and hopefully a stepping stone into the national race. To qualify for nationals we have to have runners finish in the top 15 or top 20. Our last runner to qualify for the national race was in 1996. This course will be very reasonable. It won’t be tremendously fast. It will have some rolling hills with grassy paths, but we are familiar with courses like this.”
Complete results can be found on Guilford’s web site at http://www.guilford.edu/sports/XC/NCAA/2009-index.htm.
Topics: Athletics