Slippery Rock University’s Jeremy Parsons will travel to his first Cross-Country National Championship this weekend to compete in Joplin, Missouri. The 10K race will be held at the Tom Rutledge Cross-Country Course, the home course to Missouri Southern State University.
Attending the event will be 32 teams from eight regions, as well as 24 individual qualifiers. Division II regions that will be in attendance include the Atlantic, Central, East, Midwest, South, South Central, Southeast and West regions. Shippensburg, Lock Haven and Edinboro are the three teams from the Atlantic region that will compete at nationals. These three teams are also part of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Conference that SRU is a part of.
Parsons was the first individual qualifier from the Atlantic region, joined by Steve Maine from Kutztown and Alex Hampel from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
Lock Haven’s top seven runners will compete at Joplin, including Dylan Mountain who won both the PSAC and Atlantic Region title this season. Shippensburg’s Kieran Sutton, Alexander Balla, Braden Bruning and Calvin Conrad-Kline will also make an appearance as a team. Lock Haven and Shippensburg were a tight pack at the Atlantic Region race and are expected to keep a tight pack in Joplin and compete together.
Earlier in the season the cross-country team traveled to Anchorage, Alaska and had the opportunity to compete against the University of Alaska Anchorage on their home course. The team has just been ranked in the NCAA DII National Coaches’ Poll to place third at the event, a new record for the Seawolves. UAA will be a top team to keep an eye on Saturday morning.
Parsons is looking to make a new personal record at Saturday’s race after running a fast 30:36.4 10K at the Atlantic Region race.
“I’m definitely excited to run at Nationals and represent The Rock,” said Parsons. “My plan is to stick with the guys from the PSAC and go from there.”
Jeremy explained that his goal for his first nationals race is to place in the top 40 men. Head coach John Papa and sophomore Jeremy Parsons will travel to Joplin, Missouri Thursday morning to prepare for the 2015 Division II National Championships.
