SACRAMENTO, Calif. – Multiple teams and individuals from the Great Midwest Athletic Conference are out on the West Coast for the NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships taking place on Saturday.
After competing at the Midwest Regional at Evansville, Ind., on November 9, the process has played out with automatic qualifiers by virtue of finish and at-large selections as determined by the selection committee.
Coaches Rob Mizicko (Walsh), Andrew Towne (Hillsdale) and Jack Hazen (Malone) will be taking some of their best as they try to assemble strong lineups needed to compete at the highest level of the postseason.
The women’s 6K race will start 1 p.m. ET and the men’s 10K race starts at 2:15 PM ET. Live results are provided by the NCAA and FloTrack (pay per view) will stream for coverage of this year’s meet once again.
The top 40 individual finishers of both races (nearly 300 individuals entered in each) will receive USTFCCCA All-American awards.
This year’s national championship meet is at Haggin Oaks Golf Complex and hosted by California State University-Sacramento and the Sacramento Sports Corporation.
Walsh and Hillsdale’s women’s programs are making a return appearance after finishing strong in 2018. Last year’s NCAA Championship in Pittsburgh saw Walsh place 12th as a team (Brianna Coy team’s top individual finisher) and Hillsdale place 19th.
Both programs are loaded with experience at the national championship level and full of all-conference and all-region performers.
Malone’s Mackenna Curtis-Collins and Hannah Thompson will chase All-American honors as individuals among the non-qualifying teams from the Midwest Regional. Curtis-Collins and Thompson have really put a dent into the women’s conference record books this fall.
On the men’s side, it is Hillsdale All-American Joseph Humes going back and looking to match or better his finish from 2018. The senior placed 25th out of 261 on muddy terrain. Walsh’s men also received an at-large selection and as a nationally-ranked program, have great returning depth led by Noah Murray and Jacob Caniford.
Walsh finished 18th in the men’s 10K team scoring during 2018. Cedarville also competed as a team and finished 24th in the field.