LEXINGTON, Ky. ? The University of Kentucky cross country teams trek west on Interstate 64 to Louisville this weekend to take part in the NCAA Southeast Regional Cross Country Championships. The men?s 10K race will begin at 11 a.m. ET Saturday, followed by the women?s 6K race at 12:15 p.m. ET at the Derby City?s E.P. ?Tom? Sawyer Park. An admission charge of five dollars is taken as cars enter the parking lot.
The top two teams in each race receive automatic bids to the NCAA National Cross Country Championships held Nov. 19 in Terre Haute, Ind. The Southeast Regional is one of nine around the country this weekend yielding a total of 18 automatic berths. The remaining 13 at-large teams are selected by the NCAA Division I track and field subcommittee.
Thirty-six individuals automatically qualify to the National Championship meet by being one of the top four regional finishers not on an advancing team. Two additional individuals are selected at-large by the committee.
The Wildcats are familiar with Sawyer Park, having run the course in the third meet of the season. At the Greater Louisville Classic in late September, the UK women finished first out of 28 teams while the men finished fifth overall in a field of 36 squads. At the 2006 regional in Louisville, the Wildcat women finished eighth while the men ended out in the 15th spot.
The UK women?s cross country squad is coming off of a fifth-place finish at the Southeastern Conference Championship led by junior Andrea Halasek?s 14th ?place finish, earning her All-SEC honors. The Cats won their first three meets of the season, and finished in third place at Penn State behind two nationally ranked teams. As a result of their impressive season, the Cats enter the regional ranked fourth behind a trio of teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference in the latest Southeast region poll.
?Well, certainly the easy thing to figure out is if you finish top-two, you go to Nationals,? said first-year Kentucky cross country/distance Coach John Mortimer. ?The way our region has worked out this year, and the way the national results have worked out the at-large bids could be as deep as four or five in the Southeast, or we could be shut out. Last year seven teams came out of our region.
?We have the potential to finish in the top-two if our women run their best day. The hard part about it is that all of the other regional schools in the mix all have the same potential. I think it is an advantage to know the course. It?s not quite the same course, it is now six kilometers instead of five, but the basics of the course are the same. To go in there knowing we?ve defeated Duke and Wake Forest already, along with being on that course, our confidence is pretty high.?
The Wildcat men are coming off of a disappointing ninth-place showing at the conference meet. The young squad was led by senior Chris Long and freshman Adam Henken who earned All-SEC freshman honors with his performance. The blue and white are currently ranked 14th in the latest Southeast region rankings. Mortimer hopes that the upperclassmen can bounce back with strong races in the regional.
?They are exceptionally motivated now after a very poor performance,? said Mortimer. ?They want to prove to themselves and to people who follow the sport that they are a better team than they showed at the SEC meet. But at the SECs we had some good things happen. We had a solid fifth-man in that Henken closed the gap to what would normally be our fourth person on the team. So assuming our top-three runners run as they had prior to the SECs, we can change our outcome a little bit. We have a goal of finishing inside the top-10.?
Four nationally ranked men?s teams are part of the 46 schools in the region. Ninth-ranked Virginia leads the field on the men?s side fresh off a victory at the ACC Championship. Another ACC school, North Carolina State, is ranked 11th nationally. Host Louisville (15th) and William and Mary (25th) round out the teams recognized in the latest poll.
On the women?s side three regional teams from the ACC earned votes in the latest national poll. North Carolina State finished second at the ACC Championship and sits in the 21st spot. The Wolfpack?s in-state rival North Carolina is ranked 26th, while Virginia Tech also received votes in the rankings.
Final results of the championships and a complete release on Saturday?s meet will be available at UKathletics.com.
