NCAA Championship To Include Keene, Lohrenz
UW-Oshkosh's Ashton Keene and Hannah Lohrenz are among the list of participants for Saturday's (Nov. 23) NCAA Division III Women's Cross Country Championship in Louisville, Ky.
The UW-Oshkosh tandem earned two of 56 at-large berths into the national meet after their outstanding performance at last Saturday's (Nov. 16) Midwest Regional held at the Lake Breeze Golf Club in Winneconne.
Keene and Lohrenz will compete Saturday in a 6,000-meter race that starts at 11:45 a.m. (EST) from E.P. Tom Sawyer State Park. Keene, a senior, finished 174th at the 2016 Division III Championship held in Louisville, while Lohrenz, a junior, is running at nationals for the first time.
Keene has run in six races for UW-Oshkosh this season, including the WIAC Championship, where she finished 13th, and the Division III Midwest Regional, where she placed 17th. She also finished second at the Lawrence University Gene Davis Invitational, 15th at the UW-Parkside Vic Godfrey Open, 26th at the UW-Eau Claire Blugold Invitational and 58th at the UW-Oshkosh Kollege Town Sports Invitational.
Lohrenz has run in six races for the Titans this fall as well. She finished 19th at the Division III Midwest Regional and 21st at the WIAC Championship. Lohrenz also won the UW-Oshkosh Titan Fall Classic while placing fourth at the Gene Davis Invitational, 22nd at the Vic Godfrey Open and 66th at the Kollege Town Sports Invitational.
In addition to Keene and Lohrenz, other at-large selections to the Division III Championship from the Midwest Region were awarded to Aryn Embretson and Erika Johnson from Wheaton College (Ill.), Dianne Barajas from North Central College (Ill.), Emma Roberts from Benedictine University (Ill.) and Katie North from Illinois Wesleyan University.
Seven-member squads from University of Chicago (Ill.), UW-Eau Claire, UW-La Crosse and Washington University in St. Louis (Mo.) will also represent the Midwest Region in both the individual and team competition in Louisville.
The top 40 individual finishers at Saturday's Division III Championship will receive All-America accolades.
Last Saturday defending national champion Washington University in St. Louis won its second straight and 10th overall Midwest Regional title with 37 points. The Bears were followed in the top five listings by second-place University of Chicago with 66 points, third-place UW-La Crosse with 116, fourth-place UW-Eau Claire with 120 and fifth-place Wheaton College with 167.
Rounding out the top 10 teams in the standings were sixth-place North Central College with 174 points, seventh-place UW-Oshkosh with 245, eighth-place Carroll University with 275, ninth-place Elmhurst College (Ill.) with 277 and 10th-place UW-Whitewater with 353.
Defending national champion Paige Lawler of Washington University in St. Louis was last Saturday's Midwest Regional individual champion.
Lawler is just one of three top 10 runners returning to the Division III Championship from a year ago, with the others being fourth-place Kaitlyn Mooney from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy (Conn.) and sixth-place Caelyn Reilly from Johns Hopkins University (Md.).
NCAA.com Division III Women's Cross Country Website
2019 NCAA Division III Women's Cross Country Championship Website
2019 NCAA Division III Women's Cross Country Championship Program