CROSS COUNTRY MAKES FINAL PREPARATIONS FOR NCAA WEST REGIONALS
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The UNLV cross country team will compete at the 2023 NCAA DI West Regional Championships on Friday, Nov. 10 beginning at 10 a.m. PT on the Haggins Oaks Golf Course in Sacramento, Calif.
The Rebels are set to compete in the women’s 6k event, competing against some of Division I’s top teams that include the likes of Stanford and Washington as well as Mountain West programs San Diego State, Fresno State and Boise State.
UNLV competed two weeks ago in the Mountain West Championships to kick off the postseason, junior Natalia Ruiz becoming the first Rebel to earn All-Mountain West honors by finishing 14th overall in the field. Her All-Mountain West Second Team award was earned by a 20:39.4 time, Ruiz posting the time after jumping up two spots in the final stretch of the 6k race. The Rebels totaled three different Mountain West Athlete of the Week honors over the course of the 2023 regular season, Alana Sangprasit picking up a Freshman weekly honor and Ruiz totaling two Athlete of the Week awards.
The Rebels will eye their shot at qualifying for the NCAA Championships, overall showing lots of improvement over the course of the season. Out of the four regular-season meets that UNLV competed in, at least one student-athlete recorded a career-best time in either the 5k or the 6k event. The biggest amount of time drops came through the Bronco Invitational almost a month ago where six different Rebels dropping personal-time times with an average of 35-second improvements. Ruiz also rewrote UNLV history during the 2023 season, breaking the 5k record and posting the second and third-fastest times in program history in other meets.
NCAA QUALIFYING FORMAT
The top two teams in each regional secure automatic bids to the championship. The first four regional finishers not from an automatic qualifying or at-large team also secure an auto-bid to the championships.
If a team doesn’t secure an automatic bid, it will have to rely on the NCAA DI Cross Country Subcommittee to select it as one of the 13 at-large teams. Only two individual at-larges are selected.
TUNE IN
The event will have live stats through RT Track Scoreboard’s website, which you can follow by clicking here. Those who are attending the meet can find the parking map here.