North Carolina State University Athletics
Cross Country Programs Earn At-Large NCAA Bids
11/14/2010 12:00:00 AM | Cross Country
Nov. 14, 2010
NCAA Southeast Regional recap
Official championship release from the NCAA and the NTFCCCA
RALEIGH, N.C. -- A day after running strong at the NCAA Southeast Regional but falling short of earning automatic bids to the NCAA Cross Country Championships, NC State's men's and women's teams both received at-large bids to the national championship meet on Sunday.
The Wolfpack men and women will line up for the NCAA Championships on Monday, Nov. 22, at Terre Haute, Ind.
"We're happy to get into the championships," men's head coach Rollie Geiger said. "Now we need to run well. It all comes down to that. This was one of our goals and we accomplished that. We need to run a great race. This is great for the program, great for the university, but we need to go to Terre Haute in eight days and have a great race."
Only the top two teams from each of nine regional receive automatic bids to the NCAA Championships. Thirteen at-large bids are extended to teams that meet certain in-season criteria, based on team finishes in regular-season races.
The Wolfpack men finished third at the NCAA Regional, the women fourth, but strong finishes vs. deep and talented fields at the Roy Griak Invitational, the NCAA Pre-Nationals and the ACC Championships enabled both teams to meet criteria and reach the national meet.
"It's very difficult to get to the championship race in our sport because they only take 31 teams," Geiger said. "They don't have a 64-team bracket. So it's not easy. We schedule ourselves to run against top competition every year because we want to earn those criteria points and have a strong body of work. It's really no different than a basketball team scheduling tough opponents in order to have a strong RPI. It's about your body of work."
The trip to nationals will be the fifth in a row for the NC State men and their 15th in the last 16 years. This will mark the women's program's 14th appearance in 16 years at the NCAA Championships, but the team did not make nationals the last two years. Because of that, the bid this season was especially sweet.
"This was important to our kids," women's coach Laurie Henes said. "They really wanted this. They know the history of this program and they want to carry on that tradition. I think it especially meant a lot of Kara McKenna, a fifth-year senior and a team leader. We went to nationals at the beginning of her career and I know she really wanted to go back as a senior."
