Northwestern University Athletics
Northwestern
NCAA Midwest Regional
Roberts Runs To Top-4 Finish At NCAA Midwest Regional
11/11/2016 5:09:00 PM | Women's Cross Country & Track
IOWA CITY, Ia. -- The cross country Wildcats are starting off the weekend with a solid finish, improving to 8th place at the NCAA Midwest Regionals held at the Ashton Cross Country Course in Iowa City on Friday. Two runners earned a spot in the Top 25 and Freshman Aubrey Roberts had an outstanding performance, placing 4th overall to qualify for the NCAA National Championships in Terre Haute, Ind.
The team competed in a 33-team field and was joined by four Big Ten peers -- Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois and Nebraska -- placing between Oklahoma and Northern Illinois with a team score of 264. Their performance today was an improvement upon last year's effort, when the 'Cats placed 26th.
2016 NCAA Midwest Regionals -- Final Results
Leading the team for the fifth time this season, rookie standout Aubrey Roberts crossed the finish line in an impressive fashion. Coming up from 18th place at the 3K mark, Roberts climbed her way to the fourth spot near the 5K mark. Her NCAA qualifying finish was the first for the Wildcats since 2010, when Audrey Huth placed 17th at Regionals and secured an individual bid to NCAAs to represent Northwestern.
"Aubrey ran a lights-out race and was very diligent throughout in terms of waiting for groups to move and countering really well, ultimately putting herself in the position to earn a spot at Nationals," said Assistant Coach Austin Brobst.
"It's really awesome and it's been hard to wrap my head around it. I'm excited to be going and I'm really glad it worked out," said Roberts on earning a bid to the NCAAs.
With a 5:26.3 average mile, Roberts finished first for the 'Cats with a time of 20:17.1 -- the best of her collegiate career so far and 18 seconds faster than Huth's 2010 qualifying mark. She credits being smart about recovery days and having consistency in recent practices and workouts leading up to the race for giving her an edge in the regional competition.
Next to finish for Northwestern was Freshman Sarah Nicholson, coming in 18th with her fastest ever time of 20:43.8. Behind her were teammates Jena Pianin (62nd) and Isabel Seidel (63rd) within the race's Top-100 runners marking times of 21:30.7 and 21:31.0, respectively.
Also scoring for the 'Cats was Junior Haley Albers (120th//22:10.5), Sophomore Hannah Anderson (166th//22:43.2) and Junior Sara Coffey (177th//22:53.7), rounding out the magnificent seven.
"The team was ecstatic when we got the results. We've made a lot of progress and it's exciting to know that we're progressing," Roberts said about the team's feelings after the race.
"Today they managed to put together the race we've been talking about all season. They ran as a collective whole and moved well throughout the pack, especially over the last 2K as individuals when they all started to move well and pass people that they needed to pass," said Brobst.
The top two teams and top four individuals not on a qualifying team at each of the three regionals advance to the NCAA Championships on November 19 at the LaVern Gibson Cross Country Course in Terre Haute, IN. Additional teams and individual participants will be chosen through an at-large selection process, which will be announced via press release distributed by the NCAA on Saturday, Nov. 12th.
