Anderson Closes Out Season in NCAA Regional

The Anderson University men's cross country team closed out the season during Saturday's NCAA D-III Great Lakes Regional at Blue River Memorial Park in Shelbyville.

Kaleb Gucinski (Fishers, Ind. / Fishers) crossed the finish line in 178th place with a season-best 8K time of 28 minutes, 9.8 seconds. Ayden Humbles (New Castle, Ind. / New Castle) secured 232nd with a personal-record (PR) time of 29 minutes, 35.3 seconds. Zachary Davenport (Frankton, Ind. / Frankton) took 251st with a PR time of 30:34.8. Ryan Knoll (Bertha, Minn. / Bertha-Hewitt) finished 266th with a time of 33:03.2, smashing his PR by 2:55.3.

"Regionals went well for us," Coach Karis Johnson said. "The team got out there, competed and represented Anderson University well.We have a great support system behind us. I want to thank our assistant coaches, Athletic Director Marcie Taylor, our strength and conditioning coaches and everyone who contributed to having a successful season."

The NCAA D-III Championships is scheduled for Saturday, Nov. 20 at Tom Sawyer Park in Louisville, Ky. Each of the 10 regional team winners will qualify for nationals along with 22 at-large team bids across the country. The top seven placing individuals from each regional not on a qualifying team will also qualify for nationals.

John Carroll University, ranked No. 7 in the latest United States Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) NCAA D-III poll, locked up the team title and punched its ticket to nationals with a team score of 62. Thirteenth-ranked Otterbein University came in second with a score of 89, finishing ahead of No. 28 Case Western Reserve University (107), No. 30 Calvin University (120), the University of Mount Union (163), Franciscan University of Steubenville (255), Ohio Northern University (277), DePauw University (297), Hope College (303), Wilmington College (352), Trine University (378), Berea College (432), Heidelberg University (435), Centre College (451), Manchester University (457), Wittenberg University (490), Allegheny College (504), Denison University (505), Oberlin College (513) and Adrian College (551), which rounds out the top 20 of the 37 teams in the team standings.

John Carroll's Alex Phillip captured the individual title with an 8K time of 24:27.4. In addition to Phillip, Wilmington's Simon Heys (2nd – 24:40.4), Case Western Reserve's Trey Razanauskas (3rd – 24:42.7), Otterbein's Cal Yackin (4th – 24:44.2), Hope's Nicholas Hoffman (5th – 24:47.5), Franciscan's Liam Galligan (6th – 24:48.5), Mount Union's Jeff Joseph (7th – 24:48.9) and Berea's Luke Wilson (8th – 24:50.1) each automatically qualified for nationals.

At-large selections will be announced by the NCAA Selection Committee on Sunday at 11 a.m.