University of Minnesota Athletics
Gophers Earn 11th-Straight NCAA Bid
11/14/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Cross Country
Nov. 14, 2015
MINNEAPOLIS - The No. 21 Golden Gopher women's cross country team has received an at-large bid to the 2015 NCAA Women's Cross Country Championship, the NCAA announced Saturday. Minnesota is one of 13 at-large teams selected to compete at the national meet.
The Gophers are making their 11th-straight appearance at the national championship, which is scheduled for Saturday, Nov.21, at Tom Sawyer State Park in Louisville, Ky., hosted by the University of Louisville. The women's 6K race is scheduled for 11 a.m. CT, followed by the men's 10K race at approximately noon CT.
A live webcast of the championships will be broadcast from 11 a.m. CT until the conclusion of the awards ceremony on NCAA.com.
Minnesota finished third at the Midwest Regional on Friday. Liz Berkholtz and Haley Johnson led the Gophers with all-region honors as Berkholtz led the team in 11th overall in 20:36.9. Johnson earned the first all-region award of her career with a career-best 20:38.3 for 13th place overall. All five scoring Gophers finished among the top 40 as Kaila Urick took 23rd in 21:03.7, followed by Madeline Strandemo in 34th (21:15.2) and Jamie Piepenburg in 40th (21:23.8).
Thirty-one teams were selected to participate in the NCAA Championship. The top two, seven-person teams automatically qualified from each of the nine regions, for a total of 18 teams. Thirteen additional teams were selected at-large. Champion Oklahoma State and runner-up Iowa State earned the automatic bids from the Gophers' Midwest Region.
Minnesota joins Brigham Young, Gonzaga, Kansas, Michigan State, Princeton, San Francisco, Stanford, Tulsa, Utah, Villanova, Washington, and Weber State as at-large women's team qualifiers.
Thirty-eight individuals were also selected to participate in each championship through an automatic qualifier and at-large selection process. All individual qualifiers finished in the top 25 in their regions.
Minnesota has made 21 appearances at the NCAA Championship since 1974. The program's highest team finish came in 2005 when the Gophers placed ninth. All-Americans Ladia Albertson-Junkans and Emily Brown led Minnesota's efforts. The ninth-place showing was the first of five-straight top-12 finishes for the Gophers. Minnesota's most recent All-American is Stephanie Price, who finished 31st in 2010. The Gophers' all-time highest individual finisher at the NCAA championships is Megan Duwell, who took eighth overall in 2009.
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