BETHLEHEM, Pa. --- Moravian College seniors Meg Brockett and Sarah Hughes will be competing at the 2016 NCAA Division III Women's Cross Country Championships being hosted by Spalding University in Lexington, Kentucky on Saturday, November 19.
Brockett and Hughes both qualified for the meet by finishing as part of the top seven individuals not on a qualifying team at Saturday's NCAA Division III Mideast Regional hosted by DeSales University. Brockett was second overall in the regional race in 21:38 while Hughes finished 11th in 22:01 on the 6,000-meter course as both runners garnered All-Region honors for a second straight fall.
"Around the middle of the 2015 XC season we started to realize making the NCAAs was a realistic goal for Sarah and Meg, it was just a matter of when," commented Director of Men's and Women's Cross Country and Track & Field Jesse Baumann. "They both narrowly missed qualifying at Regionals later that year and it served as motivation and a validation of the goals moving forward.
"Heading into this year, a few things we discussed were breaking 22 minutes, aiming for a 1-2 finish at Landmarks, and trying to make NCAAs," continued Baumann. "Every race this year Meg and Sarah were remarkably consistent and kept confirming the goals we had set out, most notably both of their breakout races at Paul Short in October. However, you still need to do it on the day, and they both managed to continue to be clutch for us. Early on during Saturday's race they both held back quite a bit because the first mile has about a 100-foot elevation gain, so you need to be cautious. If you looked at the results at the mile mark, neither would have made NCAAs, and by a substantial gap, but they're savvy racers and knew when to turn it on. Within the next mile they were where they needed to be, in second place and the top 12 respectively, and they managed to hold that margin to the line to secure their tickets to NCAAs."
Brockett has run five races this year in under 22 minutes and a sixth at 22:05. She was the Landmark Conference Runner of the Year and individual champion with a time of 21:10 at the conference meet, taking one minute and 42 seconds off of the previous meet record at 6K. Brockett ran a school and Landmark Conference record 21:06 at the Paul Short run. She has the three fastest times in Moravian history at 6K, and she has four top 10 times and five in the top 20 in the Moravian record book with all five this season.
Hughes has broken the 22-minute mark twice this season including a career-best 21:48 at the Oberlin College Inter-Regional Rumble in Ohio on October 15. She ran 21:51 to finish second to Brockett in the Landmark Conference race to join her on the Landmark All-Conference First Team. Hughes had a time of 22:03 in the Paul Short Run and owns three of the top 20 fastest times in school history with all three run this fall.
"If you look at their high school PRs, they were both good, but they weren't your so-called five-star-recruits," stated Baumann. "Ordinarily you wouldn't anticipate the success they've achieved here from their times in high school. However, they both have an exemplary work ethic 365 days a year and quite frankly willed themselves to become the runners they've been here. They're close friends and have been inseparable training partners for four years now, so it wouldn't seem right if they both didn't close out their cross country careers this way.
Moravian has had nine teams run at the NCAA Championships in the program's history with 1993, 1995 and 2001 teams finishing third in the nation. The Greyhounds have also had two other individuals qualify with Heather McGarvie running at the NCAA meet in 2002 and Cadee Rockwell in 2010. The Blue and Grey have 11 All-Americans in women's cross country.
The top 35 finishers in the Division III Championships are recognized as All-Americans by the NCAA, and the United States Track and Field Association selects the top 15 for All-America honors.
The women's 2016 NCAA Division III Championship race will be run at E.P. "Tom" Sawyer State Park in Louisville and is slated to begin at 11:00 a.m. Eastern on Saturday with the men's national championship race to follow.
