Nov. 21, 2008

Complete Weekly Release

ATHENS, Ohio - Capping a record-setting season, Ohio juniors Annie Beecham (Granville, Ohio) and Kari Summers (Troy, Ohio) will run in the NCAA National Championship on Monday, Nov. 24 in Terre Haute, Ind. The pair is the first Ohio women's cross country representatives in the National meet since 1998, when All-American and Ohio Hall of Fame inductee Jackie Conrad and Academic All-American Melissa Converse qualified for the Bobcats.

The duo earned berths in the meet thanks to fantastic performances at the NCAA Great Lakes Regional on Nov. 15, hosted by Purdue University. Summers ran the fourth-best 6k time in school history, a 21:16.3, to place fifth, while Beecham finished seventh with the fifth-best time in school history, a 21:23.5.

Earlier in the season, the Bobcats participated in Pre-Nationals in Terre Haute, Ind. Both Beecham and Summers had career days, setting the top-two best times for the 6k in Ohio history. Summers turned in a 21st-place showing while breaking the Ohio record by nearly 30 seconds with her time of 20:52.2, and Beecham placed 31st with a time of 21:03.1. The juniors now own four of the top-five 6k times in Ohio's all-time record book, all turned in this year.

Breaking records has been a theme all season for these two, as Beecham won the individual Mid-American Conference championship with a MAC and school-record mark in the 5k of 16:56.8. Summers followed right behind with a runner-up finish, as she ran the third-best 5k time in school history.

Both runners earned first-team All-MAC honors, the second-consecutive year for Beecham and third-consecutive time for Summers. Beecham became only the third women's cross country runner in school history to claim a MAC crown, as Jackie Conrad won in 1996 and 1998 and Carime Reinhart brought home the title in 2006.

Thirty-one teams were selected to participate in the Women's National 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 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. For more information, please visit GoSycamores.com.

Beecham, Summers and the rest of the field will run for the championship when the women's 6k begins at approximately 12:08 p.m. ET, followed by the men's 10k at 12:48 p.m. Both championship races will be broadcast live on CBS College Sports Network and streamed online via NCAA.com. Results will be available after the conclusion of the races on NCAA.com and OhioBobcats.com.