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November 15, 2009

Stags and Athenas Qualify For NCAA Championships

The men's and women's cross country teams are both headed to the NCAA Division III Championships in Cleveland, OH after competing in Saturday's West Region Meet. The Stags won the race and earned an automatic bid to Nationals while the Athenas finished third and earned an at-large bid.

The Athenas, who dropped to sixth in the West Region rankings after a disappointing third place finish at the SCIAC Championships, rebounded with a good performance at the Regional.  The team scored 128 points to edge SCIAC rivals Pomona-Pitzer (130) and Occidental (132).  Top ranked Whitworth University won the race with 49 points and second-ranked Whitman College was second with 108 points.  Jennifer Tavé (SO, St. Germain, France) led the team with a second place finish.  This equalled the top individual finish for CMS since 2002.  Julia Rigby (SO, Tustin) matched her 11th place SCIAC finish and was the fourth SCIAC finisher.  Breanna Deutsch (SO, Sammamish, WA) finished 31st and earned All-Region honors by finishing in the top 35 as did Tavé and Rigby.  Ashley Scott (JR, Battle Creek, MI) was 42nd and Kate Crawford (FR, Seattle, WA) was 46th to complete the scoring for the team.  Aubrey Zimmerling (FR, Lakewood, CO) and Laura Wyatt (FR, La Jolla ) both displaced Pomona-Pitzer's fifth runner to provide the two-point margin which ended up being the difference between the team advancing to the Nationals as the Sagehens were not selected for an at-large bid.  Tavé (22:10), Deutsch (23:54) and Wyatt (24:27) all set personal bests for the 6K (3.73 miles) distance).

The Stags, the Region's second ranked team, proved the rankings wrong by defeating top-ranked Willamette University 50-64 and winning the West Region meet for the fourth time and the first time since 2001.  Fifth-ranked Colorado College edged fourth-ranked Whitworth University 93-95 and earned the region's only at-large bid on the men's side.  Kramer Straube (JR, Menlo Park) led a trio of Stags finishing in the top 10 with a fourth place finish.  Brian Kopczynski (JR, Coto de Caza) was sixth, Florian Scheulen (SR, Encinitas) was ninth, Brian Sutter (FR, Monroe, WA) was 14th and Georgi Dinolov (JR, Santa Cruz) was 22nd to complete the scoring for the team.  Matt Kurtis (SR, Bellingham, WA) was 27th as he and the five scorers all earned All-Region honors.  Kris Brown (JR, Seattle, WA) was 42nd.  CMS had the top second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh runners in the race as well as the top placing junior and freshman.

The 2009 NCAA Championships will be the Athenas' 12th appearance in the national race and the Stags' eighth.  This will be the fifth time both teams have qualified in the same year.  Both teams qualified last year with the women finishing 20th and the men finishing 30th.  32 teams and 280 runners will compete in each race at the Nationals.  The meet is being hosted by Baldwin-Wallace College at Highland Park Golf Course in Cleveland, OH on Saturday, November 21.  The women race at 11:00 Eastern with the men following at noon.

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