2022 NCAA South Central Region Championships – Saturday, Nov. 19 – 10:30 a.m.  [Live Results] [Championship Central]
Denver, Colo. – Washington Park

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POSTSEASON ROLLS ON
Colorado School of Mines men's and women's cross country will compete in the second of three postseason races this weekend, and this one is local to Golden and the Denver metro. The Orediggers will be running in the NCAA South Central Region Cross Country Championships at Washington Park in Denver. Tickets to the NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships are on the line and the Oredigger men are also seeking a third straight regional crown. First gun of the day will be at 10:30 a.m. for the men's 10K. The women are set to run their 6K at 11:45 a.m.
 
COME WATCH WITH US
Mines cross country and track & field invites all of Oredigger nation to join the cheering section at Washington Park on Saturday. They will be based near the corner of Franklin Street and Mississippi Street starting at 9:30 a.m. Head Track & Field Coach Matt Sparks and Assistant Coach Michael Gusbeth will lead the charge. Breakfast and coffee will be available until it runs out.
 
FAN INFO
There is no charge for admission to Saturday's race, and tickets are not required. The biggest task for fans will be to arrive in plenty of time to park. See the next section for help with that.
 
DIRECTIONS AND PARKING
Washington Park is located in south Denver. The official address is 1700 E Louisiana Ave., Denver, CO, 80210. It is bordered on the east and west by Franklin Street and Downing Street. The north border is Virginia Avenue, and the south is made up by Louisiana Street. The best option for parking will be in the Denver South High School parking lot at the corner of Franklin and Louisiana. From there, fans can walk north and cross Louisiana Avenue to enter the park. Spectators should continue north to the Washington Park Sports Field. It is a wide open area. There will be lots of tents and people running around. Pretty tough to miss.
 
WEATHER REPORT
Fans may look at Google Weather and see a high of 40 degrees and sunny skies on Saturday in Denver. Do not be deceived. Currently, the temperature looks to be 14 degrees at 8 a.m. and won't get to freezing (32 F) until the start of the women's race. There is currently minimal chance for precipitation, and only a light breeze. While clear skies and sunshine will help, fans should bundle up.
 
LIVE COVERAGE
There will be live results of Saturday's championships, but no live video. The live results are powered by MileSplit, linked in this story, at www.minesathletics.com, on the Championship Central, and on Twitter Saturday morning.
 
COURSE PREVIEW
Part of what makes Washington Park a great venue for cross country and what will make Saturday morning a thrilling experience for fans is the compact, spectator-friendly nature of the course. A large majority of the race will take place in the green space of Washington Park between Grasmere Lake to the south and Smith Lake to the north. The starting line is located closest to Grasmere Lake, just north of the Franklin Street parking lots. The women's 6K is a pair of meandering 3,000-meter loops mostly around the border of the open space. The men's 10K will essentially be three of the same laps with 1,000 extra meters worked in. The terrain is relatively flat and the course is mostly grass which could make for an extremely fast race. However, heavy snowfall on Thursday could change the entire nature of the race.
 
GUEST LIST
Team's attending Saturday's championships will hail from the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference and the Lone Star Conference. In total, the men's race will feature 28 programs with 15 from the RMAC and 13 from the LSC. On the women's side, it's 30 teams with 15 representing each league. Each team is allowed up to seven runners, though not everyone will race seven. Even so, that puts the men's field near 200 racers with the women's field up towards 210.
 
WOWZA!
The South Central Region is one of the most loaded regions in the nation with 14 nationally-ranked teams in the field. The women's side touts eight of those programs including three of the top four in #1 Adams State, #3 Mines, and #4 UCCS. Then, #7 Dallas Baptist and #10 Western Colorado make it five of the top-10. It's #16 CSU Pueblo, #18 Colorado Christian, and #24 West Texas A&M rounding out the women's side. For the men, #1 Mines, #2 Adams State, #7 Western Colorado, #12 Colorado Christian, #14 UCCS, and #25 West Texas A&M are all set to compete.
 
PUNCHING TICKETS
As mentioned in the first section, tickets to the national championships are on the line on Saturday. The top three teams on each side will receive an automatic bid to the big meet in Seattle, Wash., on Dec. 2. There will also be 10 at-large teams selected across all eight regions in NCAA Division II based on their season performances against other teams. There's a formula and everything apparently. Additionally, the region gets two individual qualifiers from both the men's and women's side. They are the top-two individual finishers from non-qualifying teams. There are eight additional individual selections based on the at-large formula. Also notable is that any individual from a non-qualifying team that finishes top-five overall also gets into the national meet.
 
MORE HARDWARE
As with the RMAC Championships raced two weeks ago, additional hardware is on the line this weekend, but not nearly as much. Individual first-place finishers will be named NCAA South Central Region Runner of the Year. The top-25 individuals in each race will earn USTFCCCA All-Region status. There is also region coach of the year for the men and the women. It is typically the coach of the winning team, but it voted on after the races. Obviously, on the team side, the men's team and women's team with the lowest point total based on standard, collegiate cross country scoring will be crowned regional champions.
 
THE CHAMPS ARE HERE
Colorado School of Mines Men's Cross Country has won four of the last five NCAA South Central Region titles. With no regional race in 2020, that gives the Oredigger men three consecutive crowns since 2018. During that same span, Mines has crowned two different individual champions. Grant Colligan, who is now an assistant coach, won NCAA South Central Region Runner of the Year in 2018 to fuel the men's team title. Dillon Powell enters this year's race as the defending regional champion from 2021. He won the 2021 NCAA South Central Region by margin of 26.8 seconds over Afewerki Zeru of UCCS. It marked the largest margin of victory in a south central men's race since at least 2012. The men of Mines have not finished lower than second in the region for seven straight years.
 
AUTOMATIC
Mines' women continue to chase history as they seek their first regional championship in program history. That being said, the Oredigger women have been automatic for nearly a decade. They have finished top-three in the region six of the last seven races dating back to 2014. That run includes four consecutive automatic national bids from 2017 to present day. The only time in that eight-year span when the women did not finish top-three was 2016 when they earned an at-large bid. Mines' women have also finished runner-up in 2014, 2017, 2019, and 2021. As noted in the previous section, there was not regional race in 2020.
 
ZOE DOING ZOE THINGS
Zoe Baker wrote Oredigger history for the second time in two months. After being named to the national Top 30 for NCAA Woman of the Year in October, the Mines graduate student advanced as a finalist to the top nine for the prestigious award earlier this month. She was the first Oredigger to ever advance to the Top 30, which means she's also the first Oredigger into the top nine. The finalists feature three women from each of the three divisions of the NCAA. From those finalists, the NCAA Committee on Women's Athletics will choose the 2022 NCAA Woman of the Year and announce the winner at the NCAA Convention in January in San Antonio, Texas. The Longmont, Colo., native started as one of 577 nominees across all levels of the NCAA. Read Zoe Baker's entire profile for the award HERE.
 
THE RMAC CHAMPIONSHIPS
The Orediggers' last action was the 2022 RMAC Cross Country Championships on Nov. 5 in Durango, Colo. Mines' men won their fourth consecutive RMAC crown as Dillon Powell won individual gold for a second straight year. The Oredigger women finished runner-up for a fourth straight year, tying the best finish in program history. They also own five team silvers in the last six years. Individually, Mines' men swept the major awards with Powell claiming RMAC Runner of the Year, Head man Chris Siemers earning RMAC Coach of the Year, Paul Knight was RMAC Freshman of the Year, and Ethan Grolnic won the RMAC Summit Award. Seven men and five women earned All-RMAC distinction as well. Powell, Chris Cathcart, Duncan Fuehne, Knight, Luke Julian, Molly Maksin, Holly Moser and Zoe Baker were First-Team All-RMAC. Alex Shaw, John O'Malley, Clare Peters and Brin Strouse were Second-Team All-RMAC.
 
NATIONAL ATHLETE OF THE WEEK – AGAIN
Thanks to his performance at the RMAC Championships, Dillon Powell earned USTFCCCA National Athlete of the Week for the second time this season. In just his second race of 2022, Powell won individual gold as he traversed the 8K course in 24:05.6, to win by 14.2 seconds over Afewerki Zeru of UCCS. It anchored a 1-3-5-7-9 finish for Mines' men. In total, Powell has won USTFCCCA National Athlete of the Week three times in cross country and once during the indoor track & field season in his career. The Air Academy graduate has run eight cross country races in uniform in his collegiate career and owns five wins.
 
AT THE HELM
Colorado School of Mines Cross Country Head Coach Chris Siemers is in his 11th season at the helm for the Oreidgger men and women. Headlining his resume are a pair of NCAA Division II Cross Country National Championships which Mines' men brought home in 2015 and 2019. Over the last decade, Siemers has built Mines into a national power in distance running. On the men's side, 19 Orediggers have earned 35 Cross Country All-America honors under his guidance. That has led to six RMAC crowns (2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022) and four NCAA South Central Regional titles (2016, 2018, 2019, 2021). No men's team coached by Siemers has ever finished lower than fifth in the nation. On the women's side, seven individuals have earned eight Cross Country All-America honors under Siemers' watch. As a team, the women earned their first national podium finish in 2019 by finishing third at the NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships and added a second in 2021 by taking fourth place. Mines' women have finished as high as #2 at both the RMAC and regional championships on multiple occasions.
 
WORLD CHAMPION
In late June of this year, Oredigger assistant coach, Colorado School of Mines graduate and Mines Athletics Hall of Fame member Dr. Mark Husted earned the title World Champion. He competed in three different events at the World Masters Athletics Championships in Finland where he took gold in the 5,000-meter run, silver in the 1,500-meter run and fourth in the world in the 800-meter run. While a student-athlete at Mines, Dr. Husted was a six-time USTFCCCA All-American and two-time NCAA Division II National Champion.
 
THE ROAD TO CHAMBER'S BAY
The 2022 NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships are slated to run on Friday, Dec. 2, at Chambers Creek Regional Park in the greater Seattle, Wash., area. This weekend's regional championships are the final step before the big race. Since it is a NCAA Division II Fall Festival year, all fall sports (besides football) will compete for their respective national titles on the same weekend across the Seattle metropolitan area.
 
WHAT'S NEXT
See above section.
 
Fans can keep up with Mines cross country on Twitter and Instagram at @csmtrack. They can also keep up with Colorado School of Mines Athletics all year long on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram using the handle @MinesAthletics.