The Final Run

Columbia qualified its men’s team to the NCAA cross country championships for the first time in school history on Saturday, by finishing third in the Northeast Regional in suburban Buffalo, N.Y., and then being selected a day later as one of the 13 at-large qualifiers.

The Division I championships will take place at the LaVern Gibson Championship Course located at the Wabash Valley Family Sports Center in Terre Haute, Ind., next Monday. The men’s race will begin at 12:08 pm, followed by the women’s race at approximately 12:58 pm. A live webcast of the championships will be broadcast from noon to 1:30 pm on NCAA.com that day.

The Iona men, ranked in the top 10 nationally all season, advanced as an automatic qualifier, finishing second in the Northeast race behind Syracuse. The scores were Syracuse 54, Iona 72, Columbia 96. The Gaels are led by Leonard Korir, the senior from Iten, Kenya, who is one of the contenders to win the individual championship. Korir, fourth at Nationals a year ago, finished first over the 10k course on Saturday. He is the reigning NCAA individual track champion for 5,000 meters indoors and 10,000 outdoors.

In Division III, NYU advanced both its men’s and women’s teams to the NCAA Championships, which will be held on Saturday in Winneconne, Wis. The Violets were an at-large selection for both meets. In the Atlantic Regional races over the weekend, in upstate New York, they finished fifth in the women’s race and third in the men’s. St. Lawrence and Geneseo finished 1-2 in both those races and advanced as auto qualifiers.

In the women’s Regional, NYU was led by Maeve Evans, who finished fifth, 24 seconds behind the winner, Stefanie Braun of Plattsburgh State. In the men’s, Dylan Karten finished ninth for NYU, 44 seconds behind the winner, Lee Berube of Geneseo.

The men’s scores were very close, with St. Lawrence scoring 89, Geneseo 95, NYU 103, SUNY Cortland 112 and Rochester 148. All five qualified to Nationals. Five women’s teams also advanced from the region – St. Lawrence (77), Geneseo (91), Plattsburgh (100), Rowan (113) and NYU (168).

The Columbia men were led by Mike Murphy, a junior from Bloomfield Hills, Mich., who finished 14th at 31:40.9. The other six Lions are Kyle Merber (Dix Hills, N.Y.), Justin Heck (Monroe, Mich.), Leighton Spencer (Don Bosco Prep, N.J.), Ben Veilleux (Berryville, Va.), Nico Composto (Chicago) and Jake Sienko (Warwick, R.I.).

They will be joined by one female teammate, freshman Waverly Neer, who qualified as an at-large individual by finishing fifth. Among the other individual qualifiers were Hollie Rowland of Iona, Hayley Green of Stony Brook, Alex Banfich and Alexis Mikaelian of Princeton, and the New Yorker Brittany Sheffey, who finished eighth in the Southeast Regional for Tennessee.

Two of the teams considered the favorites in the women’s D-I race, Villanova and Georgetown, tied for first with 57 points in the Mid-Atlantic Regional. Sheila Reid, Villanova's defending individual national champion, finished first, just ahead of Emily Infeld of Georgetown and Villanova’s Bogdana Mimic. Villanova is the defending women's team champion.

The men's top contenders are Oklahoma State, the two-time defending champions, and Wisconsin, currently ranked No. 1 nationally. Wisconsin won the Great Lakes Regional, finishing in a pack as 8-9-10-11-12. The Badgers are coached by Mick Byrne, the long-time Iona coach before moving to Madison.

Oklahoma State had a narrow 42-45 victory over in-state rival Oklahoma in the Midwest Regional.

Georgetown and Villanova went 1-2 in the Mid-Atlantic men’s race to qualify and will be joined by Princeton, which advanced at-large. The Tigers' Donn Cabral was the individual winner.

The Michigan men were second to Wisconsin in the Great Lakes race. The Wolverines were led by Craig Forys (Colts Neck, N.J.), who finished third. The Michigan women also advanced, thanks in part to a surprise victory by senior Danielle Tauro (Southern Regional, N.J.). Tauro's high school and college teammate, Jillian Smith, finished fifth.

In the Northeast women’s race, Syracuse (116) and Boston College (127) qualified, defeating Cornell (137), Columbia (151) and Providence (163). Providence, ranked fifth nationally, ran without its No. 1 runner, Emily Sisson, a transfer from Wisconsin, and did not qualify for nationals.

Iona's international squad, in addition to Korir, will be the Brit Mitch Goose (fifth at Regionals), the Australian Matt Bayley (seventh), the Swede Alex Soderberg (12th), the Irishman Craig Murphy (47th), the German Daniel Lipus and the American (Syracuse) Chris Stogsdill.

Other Division I at-large qualifiers included Christopher Johnson of Colgate and the New Yorker Caitlin Lane of Penn State. In the West Regional, the women’s winner was Jordan Hasay of Oregon, who finished third individually a year ago.

The Oregon women qualified as an at-large selection but their men’s team was not selected. The Ducks were hurt by the announcement earlier in the week that their star freshman Lukas Verzbicas has left school.

In Division III, the top-ranked teams entering Nationals are the Middlebury women and the North Central (Ill.) men. Middlebury, the defending champions, upset previously top-ranked Williams, 55-60, at Regionals. In the men’s, North Central is ranked just ahead of the defending champions from Haverford.

Among the numerous Eastern teams that advanced in Div. III were the men and women from Dickinson, Elizabethtown, Haverford, Johns Hopkins and Williams. Individual at-large qualifiers included Jeff Corelli (Rensselaer), Alec Connelly (Rutgers/Camden), Peter Francis (Fredonia), Ryan Miller (Plattsburgh), Erin Lafave (RIT), Nichole Wischoff (New Paltz) and the Cortland trio of Alysa Dalton, Bori Tozser and Jordan Naylon.