The Emory University men's and women's cross country teams close
out the 2009 season on Saturday when they compete at the NCAA
Championships.
This year's championships will be hosted by Baldwin-Wallace College
and held at the Highland Park Golf Course in Cleveland, Ohio.
The women's 6K race begins at 11:00 a.m., and will be followed by
the men's 8K competition at noon.
Each championship race will include 32 teams, with seven runners
per squad, and 56 individuals from additional schools. The 32
squads in each race include 16 teams, two from eight regions, who
automatically qualified following their finishes at the regional
championships. In addition, the NCAA national committee
selected 16 at-large teams from among the top five teams in each
regional meet. The top seven individual competitors in each
regional race, not associated with a qualifying team, also earned a
place in the championship field.
The Emory men's team, ranked 13th nationally, earned its
spot at nationals after coming in first out of 24 teams at the
South/Southeast Regional in Greensboro, NC. The Eagles' top
five finishers all recorded top-20 overall efforts led by seniors
Charles Meade (Wellesley, MA) and Tommy Fyffe (Cincinnati, OH), who
came in third and fourth, respectively, in the 174-runner
field. All five of the team's scorers earned all-region
honors including senior Alex Robin (Evanston, IL), who crossed the
finish line in the No. 6 position, senior Greg Decker (Rockville,
MD), who recorded an eighth-place performance, and classmate Paul
Winterhalter (Ardomore, PA). This year's trip to the NCAAs is the
program's ninth in the last 11 years. The Eagles finished
18th at the 2008 championships.
The Emory's women's side, holders of the No. 35 national ranking,
finished second in the 27-team field at the Regional
Championships. Sophomore Tess Gallegos (Kennesaw, GA) and
junior Natalie Fenn (Evanston, IL) were the squad's top two runners
with ninth- and 10th-place showings out of 189
contestants. Senior Rebecca Flink (Loudonville, NY) earned
all-region honors after posting a 23rd-place effort as
did freshman Calley Edwards (Portland, OR) after coming in
25th. Rounding out the team's scoring and
also landing all-region kudos was junior Jenny Feinberg. The
Emory women's program has now qualified for nationals in 18 of the
past 19 seasons. Last year the Eagles finished in
24th place.
Emory Cross Country Teams Compete At NCAA Championships
Posted: Nov 17, 2009