Saturday, in Terre Haute, IN, the Rice Women's Cross-Country team will have its most important race of the season at the Pre-Nats Event at Indiana State.

As some of you know, making it to the NCAA Championships as a team is extremely difficult, as only the top 31 (of 348) teams will advance to November's championships, to be held in Terre Haute.

In order to qualify for the NCAA Championships, a team must either:

(1) finish among the top 2 teams in one of the nine (9) regions; or
(2) be selected as one of the 13 at-large teams.

As of right now, Rice is listed as #4 in the South Central Region, behind Arkansas, SMU and Baylor. Arkansas is ranked #12 nationally, Baylor is #21 and SMU is #24. Arkansas is a virtual shoo-in for one of the automatic spots, as they will host the regional this year.

As a result, it will be difficult (not impossible) for Rice to finish 2nd at the regional. But, in the event that the Owls do not do so, how can they make it as an at-large team? To summarize briefly, after the 18 automatic spots are filled, the committee places all #3 schools from the regions on a line, and compares them. They look at the season records to see how many times during the season a particular school finished ahead of one of the automatic qualifiers. The team with the most will be the first at-large team. Let's say that team is Stanford from the West Region. Boise State from the West moves up to replace Stanford in the #3 slot. If Boise State has more victories over qualifying teams (including Stanford), then they will advance, ahead of any of the other #3 teams. In this way, one region could get 5 or 6 total entries, while another might not get any at-large slots.

So, this brings us to Saturday. Rice has not had a tough schedule, and this race will be the only real opportunity to finish ahead of automatic qualifiers, since the field is so stacked. The C-USA Championships is relatively irrelevant in trying to make it to the NCAA Championships.

Rice will be competing in the 6K "Blue" race tomorrow at 11:00 a.m. local time. Here are the teams, with regional rankings in parentheses:

Colorado (1st - Mountain) NR 2
Arkansas (1st - South Central) NR 12
Michigan (2nd - Great Lakes) NR 13
Mississippi State (2nd - South)
Portland (2nd - West) NR 5
Virginia (2nd - Southeast) NR 22
Eastern Michigan (3rd - Great Lakes) NR 16
Florida (3rd - South)
Stanford (3rd - West) NR 7
Indiana (4th - Great Lakes)
Rice (4th - South Central)
Air Force (5th - Mountain)
Eastern Kentucky (5th - Southeast)
Kansas (5th - Midwest)
Oregon (5th - West) NR 9
Dartmouth (6th - Northeast)
Missouri (6th - Midwest)
Ohio State (6th - Great Lakes)
Brown (7th - Northeast)
Butler (7th - Great Lakes)
Coastal Carolina (7th - Southeast)
Colorado State (7th - Mountain)
Cal Poly (8th - West)
Furman (8th - Southeast)
Oklahoma (8th - Midwest)
Tulane (8th - South Central)
Utah State (8th - Mountain)
California (9th - West)
James Madison (9th - Southeast)
Massachusetts-Lowell (9th - Northeast)
Purdue (9th - Great Lakes)
Arizona (10th - West)
Elon (10th - Southeast)
Northwestern (10th - Midwest)
Toledo (10th - Great Lakes)
Arizona State (11th - West)
Iowa (11th - Midwest)
Louisville (11th - Southeast)
Marquette (11th - Great Lakes)
Montana State (11th - Mountain)
New Hampshire (11th - Northeast)
Clemson (13th - Southeast)

At the first split, Rice runners are 37 (Jensen), 86 (Roper), 214, 234, 236, 250.

W 6k Blue **Split 1 Scores**
1) California-129,
2) Oregon-152,
3) Colorado-160

Rice in 34th.

At the third split, Rice runners are 38 (Jensen), 71 (Roper), 179, 224, 226, 244.

W 6k Blue **Split 3 Scores**
1) Colorado-82,
2) Oregon-153,
3) Stanford-159

Looks like from your breakdown that the South is not as highly regarded as a region nationally. Hopefully at a minimum we can beat both MSU and Florida (2nd and 3rd ranked in that region) in order to beef up that resume.

Well there's always regionals...
Rice improves to 32nd on the race.. But the highest regionally ranked school that we beat was 8th ranked Tulane.

We were without 2 of our top 4 today - Abigail Cartwright, the clear #1, as well as Elsa Racasan. With them, I think a top 10 finish in today's race would have been possible.

Additionally, Cali Roper ran the final 5K with one shoe.

(10-15-2016 12:30 PM)WRCisforgotten79 Wrote:  Additionally, Cali Roper ran the final 5K with one shoe.

I think I'd rather run with no shoes than with one.