NCAA SE Regional Championships Set for Friday

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LYNCHBURG, Va. – The Liberty males’s and ladies’s cross nation groups will keep near house for Friday’s NCAA Division I Southeast Regional Championships. The meet will happen at Virginia’s Panorama Farms course in Earlysville, Va., simply 75 miles north of Liberty’s campus.
     
The occasion, which is able to decide the workforce and particular person qualifiers to the 2025 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships, will start with the ladies’s 6K at 10 a.m. The males’s 10K will observe at 11 a.m.
 
How to Follow the Flames and Lady Flames
Live outcomes will probably be out there all through each of Friday’s races, courtesy of Flash Results.
 
Weather Report
Friday’s climate in Central Virginia is anticipated to be nice for distance working, with partly cloudy skies and a excessive within the mid 60s.
 
Checking Out the Course
Panorama Farms is taking part in host to the NCAA Division I Southeast Regional Championships for the sixth time however the first since 2019. That yr, the Flames positioned 11th as a workforce and the Lady Flames got here in 13th. Liberty’s high particular person performers that day have been Felix Kandie (42nd within the males’s race) and Calli Doan (26th within the girls’s race).
 
Since then, Panorama Farms served because the venue for the 2023 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships, a meet the place present Flame Nicholas Kiprotich got here in 113th.
 
How to Punch Your Ticket to Columbia
The widespread purpose for all males’s and ladies’s groups competing in Earlysville on Friday is to qualify for the 2025 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships, to be contested Nov. 22 on the Gans Creek Cross Country Course in Columbia, Mo. Here’s what it takes:
 
Team Qualification: The high two groups at every of Friday’s 9 regional meets will mechanically advance to the nationwide meet. Liberty’s area consists of groups from Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia. The nationwide subject will then be full of 14 at-large alternatives (a rise of 1 from 2024), comprising a complete of 32 males’s and 32 girls’s groups which is able to compete in Columbia. The at-large squads will probably be decided utilizing a components based mostly upon head-to-head success in opposition to different nationwide qualifiers throughout the common season.
 
Individual Qualification: All runners who place within the high 25 on the regional meet earn all-region recognition and turn into eligible for development to Columbia. The nationwide meet options 38 particular person opponents not on advancing groups. The high 4 finishers from every regional meet who aren’t a part of a national-qualifying squad will punch their ticket to Columbia. Then, two at-large people will probably be added to spherical out the nationwide subject.
 
In abstract, the one individuals who will know for positive that they’re sure for Columbia on Friday are the highest two groups in every race and the primary 4 particular person finishers who aren’t a part of a type of groups. The full subject of workforce and particular person qualifiers to Columbia will probably be revealed Saturday at 5 p.m. on NCAA.com.
 
Women’s Team Preview
After making it back-to-back CUSA titles in dominating trend (64-point victory over runner-up New Mexico State), the Lady Flames will try and qualify for the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships for simply the second time in program historical past (additionally spring 2021).
 
Liberty showcased its workforce depth and power on the CUSA Championship on Nov. 1, inserting eight runners inside the highest 21. These included particular person champion Allie Zealand, Jessica Palisca (fourth), Katrina Schlenker (fifth), Rachel Hill (14th), Ryann Aycock (16th), Katie Sigerud (17th), Kate Loescher (18th) and Mackenzie Babcock (21st).
 
Liberty enters Friday’s race ranked No. 10 in a loaded Southeast Region which options 5 nationally ranked squads (No. 2 NC State, No. 13 North Carolina, No. 16 Virginia, No. 20 South Carolina and No. 29 Duke). The Lady Flames will doubtless must defeat at the very least a type of 5 groups with a purpose to each enhance on their best-ever regional end (fifth place in each fall 2021 and 2024) and advance to Columbia.
 
The Lady Flames have recorded three top-10 regional finishes within the final 4 seasons after doing so solely twice in program historical past previous to fall 2021.
 
Women’s Individual Preview
If Liberty is unable to qualify to Columbia as a workforce, its high girls’s particular person hopes lie with CUSA particular person champion Allie Zealand.
 
Zealand, who earned all-region honors with a 20th-place exhibiting at this meet as a freshman in 2024, has loved a sensational sophomore marketing campaign so far.
 
Most lately, Zealand recorded her first collegiate cross nation victory when she gained the CUSA title by almost 30 seconds.
 
Her two earlier races included a runner-up end on the Joe Piane Notre Dame Invitational in a program-record 15:54.7 5K clocking and a fifth-place exhibiting on the Pre-National Invitational in a program-record 19:40.4 for the 6K distance.
 

Zealand certified for the 2025 NCAA Division I Outdoor Track & Field Championships within the girls’s 1,500 in June. Only 5 Lady Flames have ever certified to the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships as people, together with Zealand’s coach and mom (Heather [Sagan] Zealand – 2000 and 2001), Jennifer Klugh (2012), Ednah Kurgat (2015), Calli Doan (fall 2021) and Adelyn Fairley (2024).
 
Seniors Jessica Palisca and Katrina Schlenker additionally bear watching after inserting fourth and fifth, respectively, on the CUSA Championship. Palisca has solely competed on the NCAA Division I Southeast Regional Championships as soon as beforehand, coming in 141st in 2023. Schlenker’s high regional end (57th place) was achieved in 2024.
 
Men’s Team Preview
The Liberty males’s cross nation workforce completed second to Middle Tennessee on the CUSA Championship, recording its 23rd top-two convention placement in a row.
 
Ranked No. 10 within the Southeast, the Flames will now look to put contained in the Southeast Region’s high 10 for the third time within the final 4 seasons. A yr in the past, Liberty got here in eighth for its high regional end since 2018. The Flames’ best-ever regional meet exhibiting is fifth place in each 2007 and 2008.
 
Three of Liberty’s high 5 finishers from final yr’s NCAA Division I Southeast Regional Championships are again, together with Nicholas Kiprotich (27th place), Tristian Merchant (35th) and Andrew Schultz (108th).
 
This yr’s Southeast Region subject contains 5 nationally ranked groups (No. 4 Virginia, No. 12 Wake Forest, No. 24 Virginia Tech, No. 27 North Carolina and No. 30 Eastern Kentucky).
 
Men’s Individual Preview
Nicholas Kiprotich has run properly throughout every of his three earlier appearances on the NCAA Division I Southeast Regional Championships, inserting 16th (all-region) in 2022, 17th (all-region) in 2023 and 27th in 2024. He efficiently superior to the NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships at Panorama Farms, the place he crossed the end line 113th.
 
With a top-25 end on Friday, Kiprotich would turn into a three-time all-region performer for his profession. The solely Flames ever to gather three or extra all-region medals are nationwide champions Josh McDougal (2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007) and Sam Chelanga (2008, 2009 and 2010).
 
Sophomore Andrew Schultz (sixth place) completed one spot in entrance of Kiprotich (seventh) on the CUSA meet, serving as Liberty’s No. 1 runner for the primary time in his profession. He seems poised for a big enchancment upon his 108th-place exhibiting from the 2024 NCAA Division I Southeast Regional Championships. 


This web page was created programmatically, to learn the article in its authentic location you’ll be able to go to the hyperlink bellow:
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