Women's Cross Country Receives NCAA At-Large Berth
11/11/2007 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country
Nov. 11, 2007
WACO, Texas - The Baylor women's cross country team received an at-large bid to the 2007 NCAA Cross Country Championships, the NCAA announced on Sunday. The Lady Bears are making their fifth-straight appearance at the NCAA Championships.
"Well, we are obviously pretty elated that we were selected for nationals," said head coach Todd Harbour. "This has been a season of trials, right up until the end when we were waiting for the announcement of the at-large teams."
Baylor finished third at the NCAA South Central Regional on Saturday in Fayetteville, Ark, just missing one of the two automatic bids. Sophomore Nichole Jones finished second overall with a time of 20:45.5 over the 6K course.
"We knew that we would be close to getting into the NCAA Championships," said Harbour. "We had a couple of things that fell in place and went our way to get the at-large bid. The main thing is that our ladies ran a great race at the regional meet on Saturday that helped us get in. We are excited to make it to nationals and we will be ready to go next weekend."
Lauren Hagans, who earned all-conference honors with a 10th-place finish at the Big 12 Championships, and Jessi Barnes joined Jones in earning all-region honors finishing seventh and 20th, respectively.
Thirty-one teams were selected to participate in each championship. The top two, seven-person teams automatically qualified from each of the nine regions, for a total of 18 teams. Thirteen additional teams were selected at-large.
Indiana State University will host the 2007 NCAA Division I Men's and Women's Cross Country Championships, November 29, at the LaVern Gibson Championship Course located at the Wabash Valley Family Sports Center, Terre Haute, Indiana. The men's race will begin at noon Eastern time followed by the women's race at 12:55 p.m. Both championship races will be broadcast live on CSTV.
