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RICHMOND, Ky. – The Eastern Kentucky University men’s and women’s cross country teams will compete at the Southeast Region Championships this Saturday, Nov. 14, at E.P. “Tom” Sawyer Park in Louisville. The top three teams from each region advance to the NCAA Championships on Nov. 23 in Terre Haute, Ind.

The men’s team is currently ranked eighth in the Southeast Region. The women’s team is unranked.

The men’s 10K race will begin at 10:00 a.m. while the women’s 6K race is set to begin at 11:15 a.m. The meet is hosted by the University of Louisville.

The Southeast Region is one of the largest, and toughest, of the nine regions in the nation, consisting of all NCAA Division I schools from the states of Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. The region also features all Atlantic Coast Conference schools.

Five schools from the Southeast Region – William and Mary (No. 8), North Carolina State (No. 16), Virginia (No. 19), Louisville (No. 24) and Duke (No. 30) – are ranked in the top-30 in the country in men's cross country. The West Region is the only other region in the nation to have that many teams ranked.

EKU, which has had one of the top men’s distance programs in the region for years, is currently ranked behind the five aforementioned teams, Virginia Tech and North Carolina, and will have to beat several of those schools to earn a team bid to nationals. EKU has never sent an entire team to the NCAA Championships.

The men’s team, however, is fresh off a dominant performance at the OVC Championships two weeks ago, placing all eight of their runners in the top-13 of the 67-runner race. 2009 OVC Male Cross Country Athlete of the Year Wesley Ruttoh leads the men along with senior Stanley Mugo, who finished third overall at the conference championships. If seniors Elkana Kurgat (fifth/26:08.61) and Chris Rengifo (sixth/26:08.81) can pull closer to Ruttoh and Mugo and one of the remaining runners – senior Josephat Melly, sophomore Chris Rice or sophomore Alex Dreyer – can move closer towards the top four, the Colonels could make things interesting.

If EKU does not make nationals as a team, several runners have a chance to earn an at-large bid to the NCAA meet as individuals. Jacob Korir was the last Colonel to do so in 2007, and he finished seventh overall.

The women’s team is also coming off a conference championship two weeks ago. Freshman Picoty Leitich won the individual championship in a time of 19:29.05 and was named the OVC Female Cross Country Athlete of the Year. She was the first EKU runner to be named OVC Female Cross Country Athlete of the Year since 2003.

Juniors Sylvia Bundotich (19:57.30) and Katherine Pagano (20:02.97) finished third and fourth, respectively, at the conference meet and will be looked upon to lead the team on Saturday.

Junior Ashli Joseph (11th/20:30.60), sophomore Danielle Mason (13th/20:35.77), junior Lydia Kosgei (16th/20:46.56) and seniors Maria Doerger (23rd/21:16.58) and Sondra Nieporte (34th/21:44.65) may also be contributors at the meet on Saturday. 

The men’s team finished sixth at last year’s Southeast Region Championships while the women’s team finished 21st.

Check back on Saturday for results.