Nov. 14, 2005

Both the 2005 men's and women's Conference USA cross country champions have advanced to compete in the NCAA Cross Country Championships following regional action this past weekend. The eighth-ranked UTEP men's cross country team secured its ticket to the championship on Saturday with a second-place finish at the NCAA Mountain Regional. The 25th-ranked Rice women, who finished third at the South-Central Regional championship, had to wait on one of 13 at-large bids awarded to teams on Sunday to secure their spot in the national field.

The top two teams from the nine NCAA regionals earned automatic bids to the championship to be held on Nov. 21 at the at the LaVern Gibson Championship Course located at the Wabash Valley Family Sports Center in Terre Haute, Ind. The top four individuals not on the two automatic teams from each regional also earned spots in the national field.

Among those athletes were Houston's Sesar Figuero on the men's side and SMU's Rachael Forish on the women's side. Both athletes earned All South-Central Region honors at Waco on Saturday. Figueroa finished 11th, while Forish finished seventh in their 10K and 6K races, respectively.

UAB's Elizabeth Ambrus, the C-USA women's individual champion, was one of two athletes across the nation to earn an at-large invitation to the field. Ambrus finished just outside the top four automatic spots at the South Regional in Gainesville, Fla., but her eighth-place overall finish garnered the attention of the NCAA and she was awarded a spot in the field. Rice sophomores Marissa Daniels, who took third, and Kate Gorry, who was ninth, earned automatic individual bids, but will now compete with the rest of the Rice squad as a team at nationals.