INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. – Colorado State University Pueblo men's and women's cross country teams earned at-large bids to compete in 2023 NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships that were announced by the NCAA on Monday afternoon.
The 2023 NCAA Division II Cross Country National Championships are scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 18 at the Tom Rutledge Cross Country Course in Joplin, Mo. The championship meet is being hosted by Missouri Southern State University. The women's 6K race is scheduled for a 9 a.m. MT start, followed the men's 10K race, which is scheduled to begin at 10:15 a.m. MT.
A total of 34 men's and 34 women's teams were selected to participate in this year's championship meet. The top three, seven-person teams automatically qualified from each of the NCAA's eight regions, for a total of 24 teams. Ten additional teams were selected at-large. A minimum of 24 additional individuals were selected to participate in each championship through an automatic qualifier and at-large selection process.
The CSU Pueblo women, who are ranked eighth in the most recent USTFCCCA Division II national rankings, is coming off a sixth-place finish as a team at this past Saturday's NCAA Division II South Central Regional meet held on the campus of Lubbock Christian University in Lubbock, Texas. Junior
Helen Braybrook (Frieston, United Kingdom/Oakham School) leads the way for the Pack women as she recorded a 12th place finish at the South Central Regional meet to earn USTFCCCA All-Region honors for the second straight year. At the regional championships, the Pack women scored 166 points to finish 17 points in front of seventh place Colorado Christian (183 points) and 41 points behind fifth-place UCCS (125 points).
As a team, the Pack women will be competing in their third straight and fourth all-time NCAA Championship race (2016, 2021, 2022, 2023) as they recorded a program-best sixth place finish at last year's championship meet that was held in Seattle, Wash., as part of the NCAA Division II Fall Championship Festival.
The CSU Pueblo men's program earned its at-large bid to this year's NCAA Championships after recording an eighth place finish at last weekend's South Central Regional meet. The Pack men are led by junior
Reece Sharman-Newell (Hampshire, England), who finished 18th at the South Central Regional Championships to earn repeat USTFCCCA All-Region honors. At the regional championships, the Pack men scored 238 points to finish 21 points in front of ninth-place New Mexico Highlands (257 points) and 26 points behind seventh-place UCCS (212 points).
As a team, the Pack men are making its fourth all-time appearance (2016, 2017, 2018, 2023) in the championships and first since 2018. The best finish in the championships came in 2017 when the Pack men took home a seventh place finish.
CSU Pueblo was one seven women's teams from the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference and one of eight men's teams from the RMAC to earn a spot in this year's national championship meet. Listed below are the RMAC schools that earned a spot in the NCAA Championships Meet:
In addition to getting eight men's teams and seven women's teams, the league also had five individuals qualify for the championships – three men and two women. The men's individual qualifiers are James Ramey (MSU Denver), Noel Lopez (MSU Denver) and Timothy Brown (Black Hills State), while the individual women qualifiers were Kristin Williams (Colorado Mesa) and Sylvia Brown (Black Hills State).
A live web stream of the championships will occur on
www.ncaa.com from 9 a.m. MT until the conclusion of the awards ceremony.
At last season's national championships meet, the Colorado School of Mines men captured its third all-time the national title as they scored 43 points to finish ahead of runner-up Wingate, while Adams State earned its third straight and its NCAA Division II best 20th all-time national title in 2022 after scoring 75 points to finish in front of runner-up Grand Valley State.
