2024 NCAA South Central Regional Championships  – Saturday, Nov. 9 – (M) 2 p.m. | (W) 3:15 p.m.
[Championship Central] [Live Results]
Denver, Colo. – Washington Park

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PUNCHING TICKETS
The second race of the postseason has arrived for the Colorado School of Mines Men's and Women's Cross Country teams, and it's the biggest one yet. Saturday's 2024 NCAA Division II South Central Region Championships mark the Orediggers' opportunity to punch their respective tickets to the national race. The men's 10K is slated for a 2 p.m. gun. The women will run the 6K course at 3:15 p.m. Team finishes in the top-three automatically extend Mines' season. Team finishes outside the top-three leave the Orediggers' future up to the selection committee.
 
BEWARE THE WEATHER
Friday's projected snowfall has forced race officials to change the start times for both races. As mentioned above, the new times are 2 p.m. for the men and 3:15 p.m. for the women. Fans who were planning to arrive for a set of morning race should not. Additionally, the snowy conditions will make the course and spectator areas very wet, very sloppy, and tough to navigate. Fans should dress accordingly, especially in regards to footwear.
 
THE FORECAST
The winter weather starting on Friday will not really fully subside for Saturday's race. Large amounts of snow will be on the ground still Saturday afternoon. The high temperature looks to be 42 degrees with mostly cloudy, to fully cloudy skies. Fortunately, snowfall should stop in time for the races and the wind is only forecasted at a light, five mile-per-hour breeze. In summary, fans should bundle up and wear boots while competitors will likely need the appropriate-length spikes and some tights and sleeves.
 
LIVE COVERAGE
Saturday's races will have live results powered by MileSplit. Those can be tracked free of charge. There will be no live video. Complete and official results will be available as soon as possible on the Championship Central page, at www.minesathletics.com, and on TFRRS.
 
FAN INFORMATION
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 while keeping in mind the City of Denver may still be removing snow from the storm.
 
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. However, fans should be aware that the parking lot may not be clear of snow and the City of Denver may not have yet cleared the streets. From the school parking lot, 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.
 
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.
 
LOADED LIKE NACHOS
There are seven men's teams and 10 women's teams in the South Central Region that are nationally ranked going into the weekend. On the men's side, it's #2 Mines, #3 West Texas A&M, #5 Adams State, #7 Western Colorado, #13 Colorado Christian, #15 CSU Pueblo, and #16 UCCS. Nationally-ranked teams in the women's race include #1 Adams State, #3 CSU Pueblo, #4 Mines, #6 West Texas A&M, #9 UCCS, #11 Western Colorado, #15 Fort Lewis, #17 Colorado Christian, #27 Dallas Baptist, and #29 Colorado Mesa. With berths at the national meet on the line, fans can bank on every team running their top squad making for an extremely exciting, competitive race.
 
OREDIGGER ENTRIES
Each team is allowed to officially enter 10 runners for the regional championships, but only seven will actually race. Entries for Mines' women include Karina Andersen, Margaux Basart, Imani Fernandez-Gorbea, Lexi Herr, Emily LaMena, Ashleigh Loe, Josie Mejia, Callen Nash, Jenna Ramsey-Rutledge, and Grace Strongman. The Oredigger men have Logan Bocovich, Max Bonenberger, Alberto Campa, Ethan Grolnic, Dawson Gunn, Paul Knight, Matt Mettler, Loic Scomparin, Braden Struhs, and Jeremiah Vaille all entered.
 
HOW IT WORKS
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 Sacramento, Calif., on Nov. 23. 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 Regional 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's 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.
 
GOING FOR SIX
Colorado School of Mines Men's Cross Country has won five straight NCAA South Central Region titles and six of the last eight. There was no regional race in 2020. During that same span, two different Orediggers have combined to win three individual titles. Grant Colligan, who is now an assistant coach for Mines, won NCAA South Central Region Runner of the Year in 2018 to fuel Mines' team title. Dillon Powell won back-to-back region crowns in 2021 and 2022. His 2021 first-place finish featured a 26.8-second margin of victory. It marked the largest margin of victory in a south central men's race since at least 2012. In 2023, the Oredigger men produced seven all-region runners on the way to a team score of 43 which edged runner-up Adams State by eight points. The men of Mines have not finished lower than second in the region for nine straight years.
 
VERY AUTOMATIC
It's quite possible that Ciara and Missy Elliott were thinking of the Colorado School of Mines Women's Cross Country team when they wrote the song "1, 2 Step." That's because the Oredigger women have been automatic, supersonic, hypnotic, funky fresh. The ladies of Mines have finished top-three (automatic qualifier for nationals) in the region eight of the last nine races dating back to 2014. That includes six consecutive automatic national bids from 2017 to present day. The only time in that eight-year span when Mines' women did not finish top-three was 2016 when they earned an at-large bid. The Oredigger women have earned team silver in 2014, 2017, 2019, 2021, 2022, and 2023. Last season's race saw four runners for Mines finish with all-region status. That fueled a team score of 77 which was 35 points ahead of third-place Western Colorado and 32 points behind Adams State. As noted in the previous section, there was not a regional race in 2020.
 
CONFERENCE REWIND
Two weeks ago, Mines' men and women competed at the 2024 RMAC Cross Country Championships in Las Vegas, N.M. The Oredigger men won their sixth straight crown and the women finished sixth. Loic Scomparin, Paul Knight, Logan Bocovich, Matt Mettler, and Max Bonenberger all finished inside the top-10 and were First-Team All-RMAC for the men. Andreas O'Malley and Braden Struhs were also inside the top-25 and Second-Team All-RMAC for the men. Imani Fernandez-Gorbea and Josie Mejia went back-to-back and #24 and #25 for Second-Team All-RMAC on the women's side.
 
THE BOSS
Still not Bruce Springsteen, but still potentially equally legendary. Colorado School of Mines Cross Country Head Coach Chris Siemers is in his 13th season at the helm for the Oredigger men and women. Headlining his resume are three NCAA Division II Cross Country National Championships which Mines' men brought home in 2015, 2019, and 2022. Siemers' men's teams have had 35 individuals earn 63 cross country all-America honors. That has led to eight RMAC crowns (2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024) and six NCAA South Central Regional titles (2016, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023). No men's team coached by Siemers has ever finished lower than fifth in the nation. On the women's side, 10 individuals have posted 15 Cross Country All-America finishes. As a team, the women earned their first national podium finish in 2019 by finishing third at the NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships. They added a second in 2021 by taking fourth place. The last two seasons have seen the women match their best finish in program history at the national race, taking third and extending their podium run to four straight. Mines' women have finished as high as #2 at both the RMAC and regional championships on multiple occasions including 2023.
 
MORE SIEMERS
One section just wasn't enough for a Mines legend. Thanks to the team accomplishments listed above, Coach Siemers boasts the following awards on his resume. He is a three-time USTFCCCA NCAA Division II Men's Cross Country National Coach of the Year, a CaptainU Division II Men's Cross Country College Coach of the Year, six-time USTFCCCA South Central Region Men's Coach of the Year and eight-time RMAC Men's Cross Country Coach of the Year. In the classroom, Siemers' squads have had 23 Orediggers rack up 49 CSC (formerly CoSIDA) Academic All-America honors along with three Academic All-America of the Year awards. They have also brought home two Brechler Awards honoring the RMAC's highest team GPA. Finally, and arguably most importantly, Siemers was inducted into the Mines Athletics Hall of Fame on Sept. 30, 2023, as part of the men's 2015 national championship team.
 
HUSTED STRIKES GOLD – AGAIN
Oredigger assistant coach, Colorado School of Mines graduate, and Mines Athletics Hall of Fame member Dr. Mark Husted has won multiple world titles after a successful summer at the World Masters Athletics Championships. He took gold in the 5,000-meter run which added to his 5K crown won in 2022. While a student-athlete at Mines, Dr. Husted was a six-time USTFCCCA All-American and two-time NCAA Division II National Champion.
 
LEGENDS ON STAFF
The Colorado School of Mines cross country coaching staff is chalk full of decorated alumni. While the aforementioned Dr. Husted has worked with the team since 2011, both Grant Colligan and Chloe Colligan (nee Cook) joined the staff in 2022, and Dr. Chloe Gustafson came on board over the summer of 2024. Grant Colligan competed in cross country and track & field at Mines from 2014-2020 and earned 10 USTFCCCA All-America awards while helping the Oredigger men win the first national championship in the history of Mines Athletics in 2015. He was part of the Hall of Fame induction in 2023. Chloe Colligan, who competed at Mines as Chloe Cook from 2014-19 was a three-time USTFCCCA All-American including two honors in the mile. She was the #1 runner for Mines' women in 2019 when they took third in the nation, marking the first podium finish in program history. Gustafson ran for Mines from 2011-15. She was a two-time USTFCCCA All-American for the Orediggers including a seventh-place finish in the 3,000-meter run at the 2015 NCAA Division II Indoor Track & Field Championships, and a 13th-place finish at the 2014 NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships.  Also on staff are volunteer assistants Steven Goldy and Max Sevcik. Goldy was a four-time USTFCCCA All-American between cross country and track & field and a member of the 2022 national championship team. Sevcik was a member of the 2019 men's cross country team and the 2022 squad, both which won national titles. He was also a USTFCCCA All-Region and First-Team All-RMAC runner for the cross country team. Goldy and Sevcik are both pursuing doctoral degrees from Mines.
 
WHAT'S NEXT
What comes next depends on the men's and women's respective performances this weekend. Top-three finishes for both teams guaranteed the Orediggers will be headed to Sacramento, Calif., for the 2024 NCAA Division II Cross Country Championships on Nov. 23. Lack of a top-three finish leaves Mines hoping for an at-large selection by the national committee, or else the Orediggers will start preparing for indoor track season. A full recap and updates moving forward will be available at www.minesathletics.com and on social media at @csmtrack.
 
Fans can keep up with Mines cross country on "X" (formerly Twitter) and Instagram at @csmtrack. They can also keep up with Colorado School of Mines Athletics all year long on Facebook, "X" and Instagram using the handle @MinesAthletics.