After a grueling effort at the Atlantic 10 championships, the Massachusetts men’s and women’s cross country teams will have no time to rest. The NCAA Regional Championships will be held Saturday morning on the campus of Yale in Madison, Conn, and both teams will be there, ready to compete.
The men’s team has an outside chance of qualifying for the NCAA Championships as a team. To do so, they’ll have to be one of the top two teams on Saturday, or be selected by the NCAA Division I track and field subcommittee.
There will be several obstacles in the men’s team’s path to the NCAA Championships this weekend. The Minutemen will face 37 other schools from New England and New York in total. Several nationally ranked schools will be competing on Saturday as well, including No. four Iona and No. 14 Syracuse.
Iona is also ranked No. one in the Northeast Region, with Syracuse coming in at No. 2. Other notable schools taking part in the meet include Dartmouth, Providence and Columbia, which rounds out the top five in the Northeast Region. The hosting Bulldogs will also be solid competition, as they are currently ranked ninth regionally.
If things do not turn out well for the Minutemen as a team, UMass competitors can still qualify as individuals. The first four student-athletes not on a qualifying team to cross the finish line will be automatically selected for the NCAA Championships.
All-Conference performers Kevin and David Johnson will lead the way for the Minutemen at the regional championships. They finished 12th and 13th, respectively, at the A-10 championships on Oct. 30 to pace the Minutemen. Last year, Kevin Johnson finished 43rd overall at the regional championships, while David Johnson came in 56th.
On the women’s side, the Minutewomen will need to overcome nagging injuries and several tough schools to keep their season alive. They will face off against several nationally ranked schools, including No. 9 Syracuse, No. 14 Providence, No. 15 Stony Brook and No. 22 Boston College. They’ll also have to top Ivy League powers Columbia, Brown, Cornell, Harvard, Dartmouth and Yale, which are all regionally ranked and will be competing on Saturday.
If there is hope for the Minutewomen, it has to start with their top four performers. Sophomore Courtney Baldwin, junior Karen Roa, senior Gina Perno, and senior Elizabeth Fisk have consistently led the women’s team this season. This was no different at the A-10 championships, where Roa finished first for the Minutewomen and was followed by Fisk, Perno and Baldwin, respectively.
These four competitors are also the top runners for the Minutewomen in individual qualifying. Baldwin was the top finisher for the women’s team at last year’s edition of the regional championships, followed by Roa and Perno.
Last season, the Minutemen came in 11th place at the regional championships, while the Minutewomen finished 20th. Syracuse finished first in both races.
If either the men’s or women’s teams qualify this weekend, they will compete at the NCAA Division I Cross-Country Championships on Nov. 22 in Terre Haute, Ind. Otherwise, this will be the last cross country meet of the season.
Ben Lambert can be reached at [email protected].
