PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The Tulsa men’s cross country team, along with Cincinnati junior Aaron Bienenfeld each earned at-large bids to the NCAA Championships, joining four individual automatic qualifiers representing the American Athletic Conference, as announced by the NCAA on Saturday. The meet will be held Saturday, November 17, on the Thomas Zimmer Champion Course in Madison, Wis., and will be used to crown team and national champions along with awarding All-America honors to individual competitors.
Thirty-one teams were selected to participate in each
NCAA Championship. The
top two teams from each region earned automatic bids. Thirteen teams received at-large bids. Forty individuals, including the top-four runners from each regional outside the already-qualifying teams, along with two individual at-large selections from the national pool, also punched tickets for a shot at a national title. The field for the 2018 NCAA Cross Country Championships can be found on
NCAA.com.
The women will kick off the NCAA Championship action on the 6k course starting at 11:45 a.m. ET. The men’s 10k championship will be the second race of the day and is set to start at 12:45 p.m. ET.
FloTrack.com will stream both races through their subscription service. Live results also will be made available on
NCAA.com.
Tulsa’s men’s team has earned a trip to the NCAA Championship for nine of the past 12 seasons. The Golden Hurricane remain the only men’s cross country team in conference history to compete in the national meet—most recently in 2016. Tulsa placed third at the Midwest Regional for a second-consecutive year and has finished in the top five of its region for the past eight seasons. Peter Lynch and Scott Beattie earned All-Region honors with top-25 performances in Peoria, Ill. The Golden Hurricane won three of its five races this season, including its fifth-consecutive American Athletic Conference title.
Bienenfeld has put together a solid year in 2018 as he recorded five top-12 finishes, including placing 12th in the NCAA Great Lakes Region Championships one day earlier to punch his ticket to the national meet. A 2018 American Athletic Conference All-Conference honoree after placing third at the league championship, Bienenfeld is the first Bearcat runner to qualify for the national meet since 2011.
This year’s conference women’s individual champion, Winny Koskei of Wichita State, turned in the best NCAA Regional finish among all athletes (men or women) in the conference. She finished third at the NCAA Midwest Regional in Peoria, Ill., with a personal-best time of 20:23.0 in the 6k race to earn an automatic bid to the national championship. With less than 1,000 meters to go, she made her final kick and moved into the top-five. Koskei becomes the first Shocker to reach the NCAA Championships since 2012.
Two-time defending conference men’s individual champion Emmanuel Rotich of Tulane punched his third-straight ticket to the NCAA Championship after finishing fourth overall at the NCAA South Central Regional at Texas A&M. The 10K race, held at the Dale Watts Cross Country Course, was the site of Rotich's regional victory last year as well as a regular-season race this season that Rotich won. He climbed up four places over the final 7.7k-mark stretch, clocking a time of 31:41.7.
SMU's Hannah Miller and Svenja Ojstersek earned spots in the NCAA Championship after their performance at the South Central Regional. Miller, the league’s 2017 individual champion, punched her third-straight ticket to the NCAA Championship, coming in fifth place with a time of 20:36.6—her sixth top-five finish in as many races on the 2018 season. Miller earned her third-career All-Region honor. Ojstersek crossed the line in eighth place to join Miller in booking a trip to Madison, Wis. Ojstersek ran a 20:51.8, only 31 seconds behind the leader.