THE MEET

South Dakota men's and women's cross country travels to the NCAA Midwest Regionals held on Friday, Nov. 11, at Gans Creek Cross Country Course in Columbia, Missouri. The women's 6,000-meter race is scheduled for 11 a.m. with the men's 10,000-meter race to follow at noon.
 

THE COYOTES

South Dakota is coming off the Summit League Championships in Grand Forks, North Dakota, just shy of two weeks ago. Coyote fifth-year senior Merga Gemeda earned All-Summit League honors for the third time in his career following an eighth-place finish. South Dakota finished in fifth place in both the men's and women's team standings.
 

THE COMPETITION

The Midwest region is made up of all NCAA Division I cross country programs from North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Illinois. There are two men's teams ranked in the top-25 nationally within the region, highlighted by No. 4 Oklahoma State and No. 6 Tulsa. On the women's side, there is one team ranked in the top-25 with No. 3 Oklahoma State.
 

THE HISTORY

The highest the Coyote women have finished at the NCAA Midwest Regional is fifth in 2017. Alumna Amber Eichkorn was the first Coyote to qualify through to the NCAA Championships in 2014 and she repeated the feat in 2015. She's joined by Megan Billington (2018) and Abby Ripperda (2019) as all-region honorees on the women's side. Mubarik Musa was twice an all-region honoree on the men's side in 2013 and 2015.
 

ONE LAST THING

A total of 31 teams qualify for the NCAA Cross Country Championships with 18 automatic bids (top two teams in each of the nine regions), while 13 are at-large bids selected by the NCAA's committee. In addition, there are 38 individual qualifiers for NCAAs. The top-four individual finishers not on a qualifying team from an NCAA regional meet are automatically selected. Two additional athletes are selected from the remainder of the national pool.