CORTLAND, N.Y. - The NCAA Division III Men's and Women's Track and Field and Cross Country Committee announced the team and individual qualifiers for the 2017 NCAA Division III Men's and Women's Cross Country Championships for this season. The championships this year are hosted by Principia College at the North Farm Facility in Elsah, Illinois starting with the men's race at noon, followed by the women's race at 1:15 pm.
Team Qualifier(s):
Geneseo - The Knights were the only State University of New York Athletic Conference (SUNYAC) women's team to qualify for this year's championship as they received an astounding nineteenth consecutive bid by winning their third straight Atlantic Region championship where junior, Elise Ramirez (Nesconset, NY), finished second in a field of 285 runners with a time of 21:43.4. The Knights are also coming off their sixth consecutive SUNYAC title, seventeenth in program history, and are currently ranked third in the nation in the USTFCCCA poll. Geneseo is now the winningest team in the thirty-year history of the Atlantic Region Championships, surpassing Cortland with ten total titles.
Individual Qualifier(s):
Megan Reilly (New Paltz) – The Warwick, N.Y. native's fourth place finish with a time of 21:50.5 at the Atlantic Regional meet was the highest finish in school history and enough to lead the Hawks to a program best tenth-place team finish. With her performance at the regional, the sophomore earned All-Region honors and was able punch her ticket to the 2017 NCAA DIII Cross Country Championship. Reilly is the first individual women's cross country runner to be selected to run at the championship meet from New Paltz since Nichole Wischoff in 2011.