Meet Information
Results Page
INDIANAPOLIS – As the fall weather turns to chilly temperatures, many student-athletes from the Great Midwest Athletic Conference will be looking to take advantage of comfortable conditions at the NCAA Midwest Regional in Evansville, Ind.
Saturday’s race, hosted by the University of Southern Indiana, presents itself a great opportunity for teams and individuals to qualify for warmer weather and a trip to the NCAA Championships in California.
The men will be running the 10K distance (12:45 p.m. ET) while the women are running a 6K (11:30 AM ET) during what projects to be a calm day in the high 40’s to low 50’s around race time.
On the men’s side, keep an eye out for Walsh, Hillsdale and Malone, as USTFCCCA regionally-ranked programs. The Walsh squad comes in at No. 22 in the national rankings and fifth in the Midwest Region rankings. Hillsdale and Malone come in at eight and nine in the Midwest Region.
For the women, three teams are in the top 25 nationally including Hillsdale at No. 9, Walsh at No. 10 and Cedarville newly voted in at No. 22. They stack up in similar fashion in the Midwest Region rankings with Hillsdale two, Walsh three, Cedarville eight and Malone nine.
Now how do teams and individuals qualify?
The top three teams from each regional become automatic qualifiers for the NCAA Championship. A total of 10 at-large teams, regardless of region, will also be selected by the national committee using a set of criteria.
There is a minimum of 24 individuals that are selected to compete per gender and the top two individuals that are not part of a qualifying team will automatically advance. It is also important to note that the top five finishers not part of a qualifying team will advance to the championship stage.
After that, the next eight individuals will be selected at-large.
This season has been something special as men’s 8K and women’s 5K / 6K standards have been broken in the conference record books. Great Midwest Runners of the Year Joseph Humes (Hillsdale) and Mackenna Curtis-Collins (Malone) have been the authors of two of those new records recently set at the conference championship meet hosted by Ursuline.
Malone’s Hannah Thompson also hit the reset button on the conference record in the 5K distance earlier this season.
The league projects to have another strong showing, team wise and individually, out at nationals later this month.
The 2019 NCAA XC Championship races will be on Saturday, November 23, at Haggin Oaks Golf Complex in Sacramento, California. This year’s championship race is hosted by California State University, Sacramento and the Sacramento Sports Corporation.