Sooner Men Qualify for NCAA Championships

Nov. 14, 2009

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - The University of Oklahoma men's cross country team finished second at the NCAA Midwest Regional Saturday in Springfield, Mo., to earn an automatic bid to participate in the 2009 NCAA Cross Country Championships in Terre Haute, Ind. on Nov. 23. With the performance, the team becomes the first in OU history to qualify for the NCAA Championships.

The second-place finish marks the highest team finish in a NCAA Regional by a Sooner men's team, who knocked off No. 27 Iowa State and No. 29 Minnesota, finishing just behind Big 12 rival, No. 2 Oklahoma State.

Four Sooners claimed All-Midwest Region honors Saturday as sophomore Kevin Schwab, redshirt-freshman Bill Kogel and juniors Rob Sorrell and Jeremy Sudbury each finished in the top 25.

"This was our best effort and performance of the year," said University of Oklahoma head coach Martin Smith. "I thought it was very important that we run a disciplined race and control the first 6,000 meters and then from that point, finish the race with a very aggressive tempo."

Schwab paced the 10,000 meter course for the Sooner men, completing the course with a time of 30:52.0 and a third-place finish. Sorrell, the team's captain, finished just short of Schwab crossing the finish line in fourth place with a time of 30:53.4. Redshirt-freshman Bill Kogel (31:18.8) finished 19th and Sudbury (31:32.0) finishing 22nd.

Schwab and Sorrell's third and fourth-place finishes, mark the first time in school history that two Sooner runners finished among the top-five competitors in the same NCAA Regional.

Rounding out the scoring for the men's team was redshirt-freshman Kevin Williams (31:48.6) who finished 29th-overall. Also competing Saturday were Junior Clay Mayes (32:01.0) in 37th and true freshman Bobby Nicolls (32:05.6) in 39th.

"The satisfying aspect of the weekend is this is the first time OU has qualified an entire men's team for the NCAA Championships," said Smith. "This has been a four-year building process and you really have to give a lot of credit to our guys for staying the course and believing that the program could one day develop to this level."

Senior Lauren Watson and sophomore Molly Ferguson competed individually for the Sooners women's team on Saturday, with Watson pacing the 6,000 meter course with a time of 22:22.2, finishing 60th. Ferguson completed the course in 23:11.5, finishing 94th.

Up next, the men's team will travel to the 2009 NCAA National Championships, which will be held at the Wabash Valley Family Sports Center and hosted by Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Ind., on Monday, Nov. 23. The men's race will start at 11:00 a.m. CST.

The 2009 NCAA Division I Men's and Women's Cross Country Championships will be broadcast live on VERSUS, marking the third consecutive year the championships will be seen on live television, and the first with VERSUS. A live web stream of the championships will also be available on NCAA.com.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

Sooner Men Qualify for NCAA Championships

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