Host Website (DickinsonAthletics.com)
HAVERFORD, Pa. – A trip to the NCAA Championship is on the line this weekend for the No. 20 Haverford College women's cross country team as the Fords will make the trek back to Newville, Pa. for the 2015 Mideast Region. The women's race will begin at 11 a.m. on Saturday.
The top two teams in the race earn automatic bids to the NCAA Championship next weekend in Wisconsin. Individuals among the top seven runners not on the top two teams will also punch their tickets to the NCAA Championship. At-large bids for those non-qualifying teams will be announced next Monday.
Sixty-three teams are expected to compete at this weekend's regional championship. The Fords are currently holding the second slot in the regional rankings. Johns Hopkins holds the top spot in the national and regional polls. No. 21 Dickinson, No. 31 Elizabethtown and No. 35 Swarthmore appear to be the Fords' top threat for that second positon on Saturday.
Haverford posted its first of three team victories on this course back in September during the long race in Dickinson's Long/Short Invitational. In that meet, it was fourth and fifth place finishes from Nora Weathers and Katie Sullivan that paced the team. Sullivan is coming off a first-team All-Centennial Conference performance with a sixth place showing, while Weathers garnered second-team honors for the third time in her career with an eighth place result. Weathers has twice been named all-region, an award handed out to the top 35 individual finishers, with her best result being a ninth place finish in 2013.
Maggie Heffernan is also a returning all-region performer in this race. Heffernan placed a career-best 33rd overall in the regional championship race a season ago. Nicole Giannetti and Amelia Keyser-Gibson also have experience running at the regional meet. They placed 73rd and 95th a season ago as the team's fifth and sixth runners across the line.
Breaking up the traditional top five of Haverford for the first time all season at the Centennial Conference Championship was MaryKate Cavanaugh. She will enter the regional meet coming off a personal best time of 23:16.2 at the 6,000 meter distance. Sarah Wade also appears ready to make her regional debut. The sophomore set a personal best time of 23:41 at the Rowan Inter-Regional in the middle of October.
Molly Allen, Sophia Drew and Caroline Henry are also on Haverford's list of 10 registrants for the week. Teams are limited to seven runners on race day. Allen has a career-best time of 24:13.7 in the 6,000 meter distance. Drew set her personal best time at this distance during the Rowan Inter-Regional with a time a 24:28.6, while Henry's personal best came in the Mustang Stampede with a mark of 24:59.4.
Women's cross country has been to the NCAA Championship as a team 14 times in program history with nine other occasions where they have qualified individuals. Haverford has finished runner-up in this meet six times with the most recent runner-up finish coming in 2012.