DENVER, Colo. – With the first RMAC Championship in school history already in hand, #1 Colorado School of Mines men's cross country made history again as they captured the first NCAA Division II South Central Region Championship in school history on Sunday, November 5 at Washington Park.

The young women's team followed them with a fourth-place finish in their race to have both Mines cross country teams qualify for the NCAA Division II Championships on November 19 in Saint Leo, Fla.

Men's Race
The nationally top-ranked men's team actually tied with #3 Adams State, 36-36, but the Orediggers won the meet on tiebreakers. While the Grizzlies had the top runner in the field, Mines' second, third and fourth finishers placed ahead of ASU's equivalent runners to win the tiebreaker.

Just as they did at the RMAC Championships, Mines' Nathanael Williams and Adams State's Sydney Gidabuday battled once again for the top two spots. Gidabuday held off Williams by two seconds (31:28-to-31:30) which was the same difference as two weeks ago at RMACs.

Dan Mahoney (31:33), Ben Schneiderman (31:38) and Nick Sevcik (31:43) then came in a group together as they finished fourth, fifth and seventh-place, respectively. Only 10 seconds separated Mahoney and Sevcik.

Rounding out the top-five for Mines was Seth Topper who placed 18th in a time of 32:15. 

Also competing for the Orediggers' was Matthew Kade and Chris Erwin who finished 24th and 47th with time of 32:28 and 33:15, respectively.

#8 CSU-Pueblo (105), #10 Western State (126) and #18 West Texas A&M (197) took spots three through five to lock up their national berths. 

Women's Race
Coming in ranked sixth in the South Central Region, the Mines women were going to have to jump at least one program to make into the top-five to qualify for the national championships. The Orediggers would jump two of them as they finished fourth overall to lock up their third consecutive trip to nationals.

The Mines top-five actually all came in a group together as the difference between Hanna Barringer and Elizabeth Starbuck was only 19 seconds.

Barringer led the Orediggers in 27th-place in a time of 23:21 to edge out Brook Eberle, who finished 29th at 23:23, by two seconds. Megan Wenham then edged Michaela Reynolds by two seconds as well to finish 32nd and 35th, respectively. 

Elizabeth Starbuck finished out the scoring with a 36th-place finish in a time of 23:40. The finish for Starbuck was truly remarkable considering she knocked down during the first lap of the race and battled back to score for the Orediggers.

Molly Reicher (24:09) and Kara Burton (25:11) finished 53rd and 89th to complete the Mines runners.

Top-ranked Adams State won the race with 43 points to best second-place and #5 Western State by 28 points. #17 UCCS finished third with 125 points, and #14 CSU-Pueblo grabbed the final spot for nationals with 179 points. #15 Dallas Baptist finished sixth and will miss out on the national championships.