As I understand it, there are two individuals who are selected At-Large in addition to those who have made it to the dance through automatically qualifiying. Who are those two individuals? Thanks.
As I understand it, there are two individuals who are selected At-Large in addition to those who have made it to the dance through automatically qualifiying. Who are those two individuals? Thanks.
Actually there are 4 per region for a total of 38 nationally.The top 4 individuals not on a team that has made it out qualify to go to nationals.So----you have 31 teams going and 38 individual runners who qualify.
It's a little complicated, but the top 4 individual from schools that have not been selected go. The list that has all the Auto Individuals can be seen here
http://www.ncaa.com/auto_pdf/p_hotos/s_chools/ncaa/sports/c-xc/auto_pdf/2009-XC-D1Release
If you notice the Great Lakes men are sending 6 individuals. These are the two at large individuals. The highest placing individuals outside the top 4 go compared to the rest of the nation. So they take the best placing individuals not selected yet. The ND and Purdue, 9th and 10th were the top placing of these. The Navy guy was 13th, the Montana State was 21st, etc etc....
If you take a look at the women, you can see the other standard, which is you have to be in the top 25. That is why there is only one from the Mid-Atlantic. I do believe they went to all the top placing individuals not in the top 4 and picked from there.
From the NCAA Handbook
Automatic Qualifiers. From each NCAA regional meet, the first four student-athletes
not on a qualifying team will be automatic qualifiers to the NCAA championship meet.
All individual automatic qualifiers must finish in the top 25 within their region.
At-large Selections. The committee will select two at-large individuals, by
identifying the highest non-qualifying individual finishes at the regional meets. All
individual at-large qualifiers must finish in the top 25 within their region.
http://web1.ncaa.org/web_files/champ_handbooks/cross_country/2009/09_1_crosscountry.pdf
The other posters are quoting the individual auto qualifiers. The 2 individual at-large qualifiers come from the highest placing individuals that didn't qualify from an auto qualifying team, an at large qualifying team or auto qualifying individuals. Some years there are more than 2 at-large qualifiers as one of the rules is to be an individual auto qualifier, you need to finish in the top 25. This year in the Mid-Atlantic women's race, there was only 1 individual auto qualifier - this meant adding 3 additional individual at large qualifiers to the women's field.
The mens at large individual qualifiers both came from the Great Lakes Region - Jake Walker, Notre Dame and Caden Shields, Purdue.
The womens at large individual qualifiers are:
South Central - Mia Behm, Texas
South East - Allison Parris, JMU
Mid West - Laura Crawford, Nebraska
North East - Corey Connor, Maine
South - Katie Van Horn, Tennessee