The men's and women's cross country (XC) teams race towards their next goal, qualifying for the NCAA Championships (scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 20th), by racing at the NCAA Mountain Regional this Friday, November 12th. This regional, one of nine nationwide, is being hosted this year by BYU in Provo.
The women's race is scheduled to start at 11:00 AM MT, with the men's following at noon. Unfortunately, I can’t see any indication that any video coverage planned.
Some notes (just copied from my 2019 regional thread) about qualifying (I did modify the paragraph a little where I change it to note THIS year's situations vs. 2019's.):
With the men ranked #2 in the region (although #3 BYU should be considered very close in quality), and the women #3 (although probably very close in quality to #’s 1 & 2 BYU and New Mexico), a 4th place finish should be attainable for both teams with even just "decent" days. Should add with the strength of the Mountain region, Flotrack is calculating/ predicting the women's-side having 5 teams and men’s 6 teams coming out of the Mountain Region, so even a slightly lower than 4th finish won't be a killer for them. (Although, with how “easily” the teams have beaten some of the teams they’d have to lose to to finish 5th, it would I assume be a disappointing finish to the coaches to finish that far back.)
A few Links:
Host BYU preview article - https://byucougars.com/story/m-cross-country/1298106/cross-country-host-mountain-regional-friday
Coaches' Association Regionals page (with schedule, links, etc.) - https://www.ustfccca.org/meets-results/regional-championships-central
Live results - http://www.runnercard.com/results3/meet?meetId=d9db79fb-35ac-47dc-ad09-9663a1a5feb1
The women's race is scheduled to start at 11:00 AM MT, with the men's following at noon. Unfortunately, I can’t see any indication that any video coverage planned.
Some notes (just copied from my 2019 regional thread) about qualifying (I did modify the paragraph a little where I change it to note THIS year's situations vs. 2019's.):
- 9 regional races will determine which 31 teams for each gender get selected for the Championships.
- The top 2 finishing teams in each of the regions are the 18 auto-qualifiers.
- The remaining 13 teams are "At-large" selections. Unlike the team sport selection process most of us are familiar with (with their selection committees), the at-large teams in cross country are selected almost totally on a mathematical calculation based on how many wins the next highest regional finishers have accumulated over the 18 auto-qualifiers, and any other teams that have earned at-large berths earlier in the process (with a few exceptions). (The wins over other all ready selected teams are called "Kolas points".)
- The at-large calculation has quite a few rules. For those interested, here's what looks to me like a couple decent descriptions of the process and rules - http://www.ustfccca.org/meets-results/ncaa-championship-qualifying-criteria and https://www.thestridereport.com/understanding-kolas .
With the men ranked #2 in the region (although #3 BYU should be considered very close in quality), and the women #3 (although probably very close in quality to #’s 1 & 2 BYU and New Mexico), a 4th place finish should be attainable for both teams with even just "decent" days. Should add with the strength of the Mountain region, Flotrack is calculating/ predicting the women's-side having 5 teams and men’s 6 teams coming out of the Mountain Region, so even a slightly lower than 4th finish won't be a killer for them. (Although, with how “easily” the teams have beaten some of the teams they’d have to lose to to finish 5th, it would I assume be a disappointing finish to the coaches to finish that far back.)
A few Links:
Host BYU preview article - https://byucougars.com/story/m-cross-country/1298106/cross-country-host-mountain-regional-friday
Coaches' Association Regionals page (with schedule, links, etc.) - https://www.ustfccca.org/meets-results/regional-championships-central
Live results - http://www.runnercard.com/results3/meet?meetId=d9db79fb-35ac-47dc-ad09-9663a1a5feb1