Nov. 16, 2008

ATHENS, Ohio - For the first time in ten years, Ohio is sending female runners to the NCAA National Championships, held this year in Terre Haute, Ind. Mid-American Conference Champion Annie Beecham and MAC Runner-Up Kari Summers were named two of the 38 individual qualifiers by the NCAA Division I selection committee as a result of their top-10 finishes at the Great Lakes Regional hosted by Purdue University on Saturday.

Both Bobcat student-athletes are rewriting the Ohio record books this season. Summers (Troy, Ohio) placed fifth in the Regional meet with the fourth-best 6K time in school history, a 21:16.3. Beecham (Granville, Ohio) came in seventh place with a time of 21:23.5, good for fifth-best in school history. The juniors were the top-two MAC finishers in the race, and the closest MAC runner to them placed 20th.

Beecham and Summers are the first Ohio women's cross country runners to qualify for Nationals since All-American and Ohio Hall of Fame inductee Jackie Conrad and Academic All-American Melissa Converse accomplished the feat in 1998. Last season, Academic All-American Craig Leon qualified for the national meet on the men's side.

Thirty-one teams were selected to participate in each 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. Thirty-eight individuals were 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 region.

Indiana State University will host the Championships on Monday, Nov. 24, at the LaVern Gibson Championship Course located at the Wabash Valley Family Sports Center in Terre Haute, Ind.

The women's race will begin at approximately 12:08 p.m. ET, followed by the men's race at 12:48 p.m. Both championship races will be broadcast live on CBS College Sports Network and streamed online via NCAA.com.