TOLEDO, OH - The No. 27-ranked women's cross country team will head to Terre Haute, Ind. for the 2010 NCAA Div. I Women's Cross Country Championship on Monday. The Rockets, who earned the program's first bid to the championship meet earlier this week, will close out their season against the top teams in the country.
The Rockets will send 11 of their top runners to the championship meet. Leading the way will be 2010 MAC Champion Ari Fisher, who took third place at the NCAA Great Lakes Regional Championship last Saturday. Also competing for the Rockets will be Emma Kertesz, who finished 19th and, like Fisher, earned all-region honors, Megan Wright, Audra Brown, Devyn Ramsay, Megan Vogelsong, Kristal Studer, Lei Bornhorst, Samantha Condron, Elizabeth Lemon and Lindsay Toussant.
Heading into the season-culminating meet, only one member of the Toledo squad heads to Terre Haute with NCAA Championship-experience. Fisher was Toledo's lone participant last season, finishing 43rd and missing All-American status by just three places. But lack of experience is only of minor concern to Head Coach Kevin Hadsell.
"Obviously this will be the toughest meet we'll be in all year," Hadsell said. "The girls don't have any experience being there, except for Ari, but it's not like they don't have big meet experience. We went to Missouri State to essentially race in a dual meet with Texas Tech, one of the top five teams in the country. There's a lot of 'Texas Techs' in the race on Monday, but we're not afraid to race these people, we've done it all year and they're no different than us. Even though Ari is the only one with experience going in, the mindset and how you approach it emotionally is the same."
"I think it has a lot to do with the way that we approach things, the atmosphere we have here," continued Hadsell. "It's about being fearless, not being afraid. The one thing about our team is they know we earned our way to the NCAAs. We made it on our own merit and on how we raced all year long. We belong there. They know that and understand that, so they believe in themselves."
The championship race will be hosted by Indiana State University at the LaVern Gibson
Championship Course located at the Wabash Valley Family Sports Center in Terre
Haute, Indiana. The women's 6K race will begin at approximately 12:08 p.m.
Eastern time. A live webcast of the championships will be broadcast from
noon to 1:30 p.m. Eastern time, Monday, November 22, on NCAA.com.
In addition, highlights from the championships will be included as part of the
CBS NCAA Fall Seasonal Show scheduled to air on Saturday, December 18 from 1:00
to 2:00 p.m. Eastern time on CBS HD.
Rockets at the NCAA Championship
2009 - Ari Fisher - 43rd
2005 - Dagmara Handzlik - 119th
2003 - Chris Tye - 161st
2002 - Briana Shook - 24th
Sara Vergote - 56th
2001 - Briana Shook - 64th
2000 - Tuula Laitinen - Withdrew, Injury
MAC Teams at NCAAs
2002 - Ball State - 27th/31 schools
1996 - Eastern Michigan - 22nd/22 schools
1995 - Bowling Green - 19th/22 schools
**Toledo becomes just the fourth women's team in MAC history to qualify for the NCAA Championships**
NCAA Great Lakes Regional Recap
Women (3rd overall, 130 points)
3. Ari Fisher (All-Region)
19. Emma Kertesz (All-Region)
33. Megan Wright
36. Audra Brown
39. Devyn Ramsay
63. Megan Vogelsong
73. Kristal Studer
Men (21st overall, 541 points)
74. Jon DeWitt
81. Elisha Kipchumba
105. Barnabas Kiprotich
121. Nick Thomas
160. Ricky Adamson
165. Jacob Barnes
166. Mike Smith
