Marquette Women Place 7th at Regional Championships; Men Tie for 12th

Milwaukee-- The Marquette women's cross country team finished 7th today at the Great Lakes Regional Championship in West Lafayette, Ind., missing an automatic bid to the NCAA Championships. The Golden Eagles finished the 6-K course with 156 points. Notre Dame claimed the top-spot with only 63 points. Michigan (107 pts.) and Michigan State (120 pts.) rounded out the top-three. Senior Jessie Swan (West Allis, Wis.) led the team as she finished 7th with her time of 21:29.9. Seniors Susan Barth (Bluffton, Ind.) and Jackie Swan (West Allis, Wis.) were next for Marquette as they finished 18th and 32nd respectively with their 21:58.0 and 22:11.8 times. Molly Huddle of Notre Dame claimed first-place in the women's run with a 20:57.2 mark.
Coach Dave Uhrich says that the team didn't run as well as it could have.
"It didn't go as well as we wanted it to," he said. "If you have just a little bit of an off day you can fall quickly and that's what happened today. Now it's just a matter of waiting two days until we know if we get an at-large bid or not."
The men's team tied with conference-rival Cincinnati for 12th place as they both received 382 points. Wisconsin claimed first-place in the men's 8-K race with 57 points. Eastern Michigan posted 70 points for a second-place finish and Central Michigan finished with 123 points for third place. The men's squad was led by freshman Brent Des Roches (Dayton, Ohio). Dave Lance (Bellevue, Wash.) took 79th place with a 32:42.4 run and Jake Remitz (Oconomowoc, Wis.) finished with a 32:44.6 time, claiming 80th place. There were 10 nationally-ranked teams in today's run.
Uhrich is pleased with the way the men's squad raced.
"That was the best men's race of the year," he said. "Our region is by far the toughest in the country and to be 12th is pretty amazing. It's a good stepping stone for our young team."
The women's team will know Monday afternoon (Nov. 18) if they receive one of the 13 at-large bids to Nationals.