2023 NCAA DIII Cross Country Regional Championships Saturday Recap

Welcome to Regional Championships Saturday!

We’re about to find out which teams earn automatic bids to the upcoming 2023 NCAA DIII Cross Country Championships, held next Saturday, November 18, in Newville, Pennsylvania, as well as figure out which individuals and teams secured at-large spots.

From The USTFCCCA InfoZone: Meets & Results | USTFCCCA Scoreboard

We’ll keep track of which teams earned automatic bids to the Keystone State in the table below.

NCAA DIII Cross Country Automatic Qualifying Teams
Region		Men’s AQs		Women’s AQs
East		MIT		MIT
Great Lakes		John Carroll		Calvin
Metro		Haverford		TCNJ
Mid-Atlantic		Carnegie Mellon		Johns Hopkins
Mideast		Williams		Williams
Midwest		North Central (Ill.)		Wartburg
Niagara		SUNY Geneseo		SUNY Geneseo
North		UW-La Crosse		Carleton
South		Lynchburg		Lynchburg
West		Pomona-Pitzer		Claremont-Mudd-Scripps

If you want to find out what happened in some of those ten Regional Championships, you’re in luck!

Scroll below to learn more about an exciting day of racing.

Great Lakes Region

CLICK HERE FOR RESULTS OF THE MEET

Men’s 8k Championship

Only one team had three runners in the top-10 on Saturday.

That’s probably why John Carroll captured the team title. The 20th-ranked Blue Streaks went 3-6-10-23-27 for 69 points, which was 13 fewer than No. 18 Calvin’s 82. Ethan Domitrovich and Dominic Delmoro were the top runners for JCU in third and sixth place, respectively.

No. 29 Mount Union was third with 97 points, followed by unranked Hope in fourth with 169 points and unranked Case Western Reserve in fifth with 182 points.

Simon Heys of Wilmington (Ohio) won the individual title in 23:46.7.

Women’s 6k Championship

It couldn’t get much closer. It really couldn’t.

The race for the individual title was decided by 0.02 seconds.

And the regional title came down to a tiebreaker.

Ultimately, Meghan Owens of Centre and No. 18 Calvin emerged victorious.

Owens and Lauren Iagnemma of Case Western Reserve went back and forth over the final homestretch before the former eked out the win. The Centre star was up by nine seconds at the 2k split, but Iagnemma reeled her in over the next 3k and was lockstep with her by the 5k split.

Calvin and No. 29 DePauw had to wait until the officials dotted their i’s and crossed their t’s before knowing who earned the automatic bid to the NCAA Championships. That turned out to be the Knights, who earned the head-to-head tiebreaker with their top-3 runners finishing better than those from their counterparts (8-9-16-23-34 versus 12-17-18-19-24).

No. 17 Hope finished third with 113 points, followed by No. 24 John Carroll in fourth with 119 points and No. 35 Centre in fifth with 194 points.

Mideast Region

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Men’s 8k Championship

Williams remains undefeated at the Mideast Region Championships.

The eighth-ranked Ephs used their overall depth to score a 10-point win over No. 9 RPI, 47-57. Williams put four runners in the top-15 and another right outside that threshold, which trumped a 1-3-7 start by the Engineers (RPI’s fourth and fifth athletes were 18th and 28th). Nikhil DeNatale led the Ephs with an individual runner-up finish behind champion Cory Kennedy.

No. 24 Middlebury was third with 72 points, followed by No. 17 Amherst in fourth with 128 points and unranked St. Lawrence in fifth with 143 points.

Women’s 6k Championship

Williams made quick work of the competition on Saturday.

Genna Girard captured the individual title in 20:48.8, nearly eight seconds ahead of the rest of the field, and the tenth-ranked Ephs followed her lead with a dominating victory. Williams went 1-11-14-15-20 for 61 points, 48 fewer than runner-up No. 14 Amherst.

No. 30 Connecticut College was third with 125 points, followed by No. 31 St. Lawrence in fourth with 129 points and No. 23 Middlebury in fifth with 137 points.

Midwest Region

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Men’s 8k Championship

In a back-and-forth team battle, No. 2 North Central (Ill.) won the Midwest Regional with 49 points, topping the host No. 6 Wartburg who scored 55. North Central, who placed three in the race’s top five, captured the region for the second-straight year.

With their front five all finishing in the top-20, the Knights of Wartburg were led by now back-to-back region champion Christopher Collet who covered the 8k course in 24:09.7 and won today’s race by over 13 seconds. North Central was led by Braden Nicholson and Max Svienty who took third and fourth, respectively. Fourth-place individually went to Cullen Capuano who led No. 15 Washington (Mo.) to a third-place regional finish (99 points).

No. 21 Central (Iowa) placed fourth in the team standings (127 points) while No. 33 Loras (135) rounded out the top five.

Women’s 6k Championship

Make it three-in-a-row for No. 5 Wartburg. The Knights captured the region crown once again, surviving a close battle with No. 2 Chicago, 37-47. Both teams placed each of their top five in the final top 20.

In a tight race to the finish, Wartburg’s Lexi Brown won the individual title in 20:51.6, edging out Caroline Martin who came through in 20:52.3 to lead the charge for the third-place team, No. 16 Central College (84 points). Chicago was led by Evelyn Battleson-Gunkel who placed third individually, crossing just one second behind Martin. Wartburg also captured the fourth- and fifth-place slots with Shaelyn Hostager and Aubrie Fisher.

No. 11 Washington (Mo.) finished fourth (88 points) in the team battle.

North Region

CLICK HERE FOR RESULTS OF THE MEET

Men’s 8k Championship

You can’t stop depth.

UW-La Crosse ran like the top-ranked team in the nation and posted a resounding victory on Saturday. The Eagles, led by individual runner-up Isaac Wegner, third-place finisher Ethan Gregg and fourth-place finisher Grant Matthai, steamrolled a strong field on their way to a 37-point win over No. 4 UW-Whitewater, 33-70. Aidan Matthai and Adam Loesner wrapped up UW-La Crosse’s scoring lineup in eighth and tenth place, respectively.

Individual champion Christian Patzka paced the Warhawks to their runner-up finish. Patzka crossed the finish line in 24:02.0, 1.6 seconds ahead of Wegner. Gunner Schlender was the only other UW-Whitewater athlete in the top-10 (Schlender finished ninth in 24:40.5).

No. 11 St. Olaf took third place with 89 points, followed by No. 31 UW-Stout in fourth with 148 points and No. 22 Carleton in fifth with 172 points.

Women’s 6k Championship

Fiona Smith of Saint Benedict ran like usual.

Carleton imposed its will as the top-ranked team in the field.

Smith cruised to the individual title in 20:42.0, 25 seconds ahead of her closest pursuer. That was Smith’s sixth consecutive win this season, as she remains undefeated ahead of next week’s NCAA Championships.

The third-ranked Knights tuned up for another run at the NCAA podium with a strong effort on Saturday. Carleton went 3-6-8-9-22 for 48 points, 20 fewer than runner-up No. 22 UW-Eau Claire. Hannah Preisser was the Knight’s top runner on the day, finishing third in 21:31.5.

No. 12 UW-La Crosse finished third with 77 points, followed by No. 22 St. Olaf in fourth with 117 points and unranked UW-Stout in fifth with 210 points.