Haverford History at NCAA Cross Country Championship
HAVERFORD, Pa. – The Haverford College women's cross country team is set to battle the best distance runners across Division III at this Saturday's NCAA Championship in Wisconsin. The Fords are ranked No. 22 in the latest United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) Poll.
Haverford will be making its 15th appearance as a team at the national championship on the women's side. The Fords are one of 19 schools that have qualified as teams on both the men's and women's side. The women's race will get started at 12 p.m. EST (an 11 a.m. start in the local central time zone). A link to a live video feed of the race courtesy of NCAA.com will also be available.
The Fords have made the national championship as a team in six of the last seven seasons overall. Nora Weathers enters the race with the most appearances on the national stage. She has competed in two NCAA Cross Country Championships in addition to her All-American exploits on the track. She placed a career-best 72nd at the 2013 championship with a 107th place showing as a freshman. She has garnered all-conference accolades for the third straight season and all-region recognition for the second time in her career already this postseason.
Fellow senior Maggie Heffernan also brings NCAA experience to the meet with a 160th place finish during the 2013 championship meet. Heffernan is also coming off of her second career all-region accolade this past weekend. In addition to the two seniors, five sophomores made up the seven runners in the regional meet.
Katie Sullivan has been the team's top finisher in each of the postseason races this fall. She earned first-team All-Centennial Conference honors with a sixth place finish at the conference meet and followed that up with a ninth place time to earn All-Mideast Region accolades. Amelia Keyser-Gibson was the team's second runner across the line at the regional meet as one of the team's four All-Mideast runners.
Nicole Giannetti was the Fords' fifth scoring runner at the Mideast Regional with a 47th place finish. MaryKate Cavanaugh was the team's fifth scoring runner at the conference meet with a personal best time of 23:16.2. Sarah Wade was the sixth Haverford finisher at the Mideast Regional. Her career best time came at the Rowan Inter-Regional with a mark of 23:41.
The top 35 individual finishers will earn All-American recognition at the awards ceremony to follow the men's race. Eight individuals have combined for a total of 13 All-America certificates over the team's NCAA Cross Country history. The team's best individual placement was a fourth place finish from Jen Maranzano '94 during the 1993 season. The most recent All-American came during the 2012 season.
Haverford's best finish as a team was a 10th place showing during that 1993 season when Maranzano finished fourth overall. If the Fords were to beat their ranking coming into the meet and finish among the top 20 teams it would be their ninth finish among the top 20.