(Portions of this story courtesy of the Centre College and Colorado College websites)
SEGUIN, Texas - The Rhodes College women finished second to Emory University at the NCAA Division III South/Southeast Regional championship meet this morning and automatically qualified for next week's national championship meet. South Region - Team Results | South Region - Individual Results | West Region Results
Rhodes' women totaled 86 points to narrowly squeak by Centre College's women, who finished third with 92 points. Emory won the event with 45 points. Trinity University (102 points) and Christopher Newport University (179) completed the top five.
Rounding out the placement of other SCAC women's teams competiting at the event, Sewanee finished 10th with 341 points, Millsaps College was 16th with 459 points, Southwestern University placed 24th with 608 points and Hendrix College finished 28th with 748 points.
Rhodes was led by junior Maddie Harrigan's seventh-place finish with a time of 22:57.6. Also earning all-Region honors for the Lynx, by virtue of a top 35 finish, was sophomore Becca Olivarez was 13th (23:20.6), first-year runner Aubrey Schonhoff was 17th (23:44.8), senior Caroline Webster finished 24th (24:10.3) and first-year runner Claire Coulter was 25th (24:19.9).
While Centre did not qualify automatically as a team, the Colonels did have two individual national qualifiers. Freshman Ashley El Rady finished fourth on the 6K course and was the third individual qualifier with a time of 22:49.4. Senior Bekah Rehkamp finished tenth overall with a time of 23:14.4 and was the sixth individual qualifier.
Sophomore Rosemary Steup of Trinity also qualified as an individual for the national meet with an overall finish of fifth (22:52.9).
Joining the eight SCAC performers listed above on the all-Region team with top 35 performances were freshman Hannah Ellis of Centre, who finished in 14th place with a time of 23:21.4, freshman Michelle Oberndorf of Trinity, who finished in 21st with a time of 23:52.2, senior Paige Farris of Centre, who finished in 24:20.1, good for 28th place, freshman Jessica Pagano of Trinity, who finished in 33rd place with a time of 24:28.4, and sophomore Willow Smith of Sewanee, who finished in 35th place with a time of 24:31.1
The Centre and Trinity women still have a chance to be selected as one of the six at-large teams for the national meet. The NCAA will make that decision on Sunday. The national meet will take place on Nov. 19 in Oshkosh, Wisc.
Over in the West Region, seniors Devin Nadar and Maggie Harkins raced to 17th and 18th place, respectively, while leading the Colorado College women to a ninth-place finish at Saturday's NCAA Division III West Region Championship in Pomona, Calif.
By finishing among the top 35 individuals at the meet hosted by Occidental College, Nadar and Harkins earned All-Region recognition.
Junior Mary Wang barely missed, taking 42nd place.
Nadar completed the soggy 6K course in 22 minutes and 24.7 seconds, a second and a half ahead of Harkins, who posted a personal-record clocking of 22:26.2.
Wang's time of 23:11.4 also represents a PR for her.
