Cross country primed for West Regionals

ORANGE, Calif. – The Chapman University men's and women's cross country teams are set to run at the NCAA Division III West Region championships on Saturday at Willamette University (Ore.). Eight Panthers will compete for a chance to earn a berth at the national championships on Saturday, Nov. 20 in Waverly, Iowa.

The first race on Saturday will feature the men's 8,000 meters at 11 a.m. The Panthers will be led by freshman D.J. Smithers who ran a personal best 28:29.1 in the 8K in his final regular season race at the Biola Invitational in October. Sophomore Angel Flores had the Panthers' second-best men's time of the year at the UC Riverside Invite in September, finishing with a season-best 28:33.4.

Sophomore Zac Campbell and freshman Kevin Tatlock also qualified for the regional championships with sub-30 minute times in the 8K and season-bests at Biola last month.

The women's 6,000 meters will begin at noon on Saturday. Chapman is led by freshman Elisabeth Mitchell, whose team-best time of 21:11.9 at the Biola Invitational beat her previous personal best by more than 32 seconds.

The Panther women are coming into the Regionals following their best meet of the season at Biola. All four runners set season-best times in the 5K at the last meet of the regular season: freshman Kelly Kneis (22:02.6), senior Kirsten Moore (22:17.5) and sophomore Jessie Drews (22:53.9).

To qualify for the championships, the women had to record a time of 23 minutes or less for the women in the 5K.

The top two teams, plus top seven individual runners in each race will qualify for the national championships, hosted by Wartburg College (Iowa).

by Doug Aiken
Sports Information Director

NCAA Division III West Region championships page: http://d3xc.com/