Mountaineers Gear Up for NCAA Southeast Regional

BOONE, N.C. – The App State males’s and ladies’s cross nation groups are set to journey to Charlottesville, Va. for the NCAA Southeast Regional on Friday. The ladies’s 6K is scheduled for 10 a.m. with the boys’s 10K to comply with at 11 a.m. Fifty-one groups from the area will be part of the Mountaineers in Friday’s competitors. 
 
Last Time Out 
App State turned the second program in Sun Belt historical past to brush the boys’s and ladies’s staff titles in back-to-back seasons on Oct. 31. The App State males captured their third consecutive title, scoring 32 factors, whereas the ladies secured their second consecutive title with 77 factors. 
 
All eight opponents within the males’s race collected All-SBC honors after ending among the many high 20. Sophomore Henry Stark led the cost, clocking an 8K private better of 24:07.41 to position fourth general and earn the Sun Belt’s Elite Award. Freshmen Noah Martinson and Tate Shore positioned fifth and sixth, respectively, with private bests of 24:09.71 and 24:12.82. Sophomore Thomas Wlazlowski (24:16.78) and senior Ethan Lipham (24:20.7) rounded out the highest 10 for the Mountaineers. Sophomores Memphis Rich and Aaron Kidd clocked occasions of 24:38.60 and 24:53.99 to position twelfth and seventeenth, respectively, and have been adopted by redshirt senior Chase Burrell, who stopped the clock at 24:54.54 to position 18th general. 
 
Freshman Tessa Massa set tempo for the App State ladies within the 5K, ending eleventh with a private better of 17:39.90. Fellow freshman Josie Jackson positioned 14th with a private better of her personal, stopping the clock at 17:47.50. Sophomores Savannah Moore (17:51.00) and Breanna Budzinski (17:51.50), and freshman Elizabeth McCart (17:54.30), rounded out the highest 20. Massa, Jackson, Moore, Budzinski, and McCart collected all-conference accolades for his or her performances on the course. 
 
Aside from the Mountaineers’ all-conference honors, App State additionally recorded this system’s second consecutive sweep of the league’s Men’s and Women’s Coach of the Year and Men’s and Women’s Freshman of the Year honors. Men’s distance coach Brad Herbster collected his third Sun Belt Men’s Cross Country Coach of the Year in as a few years. Women’s distance coach Annie Richards earned her second consecutive SBC Women’s Cross Country Coach of the Year honor to finish the sweep. Martinson and Massa have been named the league’s Freshmen of the Year for his or her efforts within the males’s and ladies’s races, respectively.  
 
Last Time on the NCAA Southeast Regional
At the 2024 NCAA Southeast Regional, the Mountaineer males positioned 14th out of 33 groups, whereas the App State ladies took sixteenth out of 34 groups. Calbert Guest led the cost within the males’s race, clocking a 10K time of 31:17.1 to position forty fourth out of 235 opponents. Lipham (31:42.5), Wlazlowski (32:10.6), and Ethan Turner (32:21.9), joined Guest within the high 100 particular person finishers. In the ladies’s 6K, Lauren Johnston was the primary Mountaineer to cross the end line, stopping the clock at 21:50.7 to position 53rd general. Finishing within the high 100 with Johnston was Jasmine Donohue (22:22.7), Emma Russum (22:27.5), and Lana Farris (22:35.4). 
 
The Road to the NCAA Championships
The NCAA Championships can be held on Nov. 22 in Columbia, Mo. The ladies’s 6K is slated for 10:20 a.m. ET (9:20 a.m. CT), with the boys’s 10K to comply with at 11:10 a.m. ET (10:10 a.m. CT). The race can be accessible to observe on ESPNU. 
 
The championship area will characteristic 32 groups and 38 people. The high two groups at every of the 9 regional meets will routinely advance to whole 18 automated qualifying groups. Fourteen at-large qualifying groups are chosen based mostly on some extent system reflective of how they beat widespread opponents all through the season. A complete of 36 people (the highest 4 ending people per area) who should not already on a qualifying staff will routinely advance to the championship. Two people can be chosen at-large to spherical out the 38 particular person qualifiers. More details about qualify for the NCAA Championships will be discovered on ncaa.com. 

App State was final represented on the NCAA Cross Country Championships by App State Athletics Hall of Famer Mary Jayne (MJ) Harrelson in 2000. While at App State, Harrelson certified for 3 consecutive NCAA Championships (1998, 1999, and 2000). The ladies’s squad additionally noticed fellow App State Athletics Hall of Famer Whitney Ball qualify for the championship meet in 1989. The males’s squad final appeared on the NCAA Championships in 1994 with a staff qualification. Jon Crumbliss, Jamie Griggs, Tom Holland, Brian Miesch, Seth Peoples, Judson Sarver, and Alan Whicker competed for the Black and Gold underneath the path of 2010 App State Athletics Hall of Fame inductee, coach Al Fereshetian.