MAAC Men's and Women's Cross Country Teams Take Aim at NCAA Championship
MAAC Sports
Edison, NJ ? All 10 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference men’s and women’s cross country teams will compete in the NCAA Regional Championships on Saturday, November 10th. The top two teams in each region earn an automatic bid into the 2007 NCAA Championship in Terre Haute, Indiana.
Canisius, Fairfield, Iona, Manhattan, Marist, Niagara, and Siena will run in the Northeast Regional at Franklin Park in Boston, while Loyola, Rider, and Saint Peter’s head to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania for the Mid-Atlantic Regional.
The Iona men’s team, coming off its 17th straight MAAC Championship, is going for its third straight Regional Championship and fifth in the last six years. Leading the way for the Gaels will be 2006 MAAC Champion Abraham Ng’etich and 2007 MAAC Champion Mohamed Khadraoui. Khadraoui and Ng’etich finished second and fifth, respectively, at last year’s Northeast Regional.
On the women’s side, Iona will be looking to earn its second straight automatic bid to the National Championship. McKayla Plank, the 2007 MAAC Champion, will be hoping to improve upon her sixth place finish at the 2006 Regionals.
The men’s 10k race will start at 2:30 p.m. and the women’s 6k race will go off at 3:30 p.m. at the Northeast Regional in Boston. The Mid-Atlantic Regional - run on the Goodman Campus Cross Country Course ? will begin with the men’s 10k at 11 a.m., followed by the women’s 6k at 12:15 p.m.