Ceili McCabe Leads Mountaineers To Regional Victory; Princeton Edges Georgetown On Tiebreaker For Second Men's Team Spot Behind Villanvoa

By Oliver Hinson for DyeStat

University of West Virginia photo

RESULTS | Auto Qualifiers - Villanova men, Princeton men; West Virginia women, Georgetown women

Fifth-ranked West Virginia and the No. 8 Georgetown women and the No. 14 Villanova and No. 18 Princeton men advanced to the NCAA Cross Country Championships with top-two finishes at the Mid-Atlantic Regional meet Friday afternoon at the Penn State University Cross Country Course.

West Virginia led the women’s race from the gun, with senior and Canadian Olympian Ceili McCabe leading the way. McCabe took the overall win with a time of 19:11 over the 6k distance. McCabe won the Big 12 Championships two weeks ago, and she was fourth at Pre-Nationals on Oct. 19.

The Mountaineers put all of their scoring five in the top 15, giving them 41 points. Freshman Joy Naukot, in her fourth collegiate race, finished sixth, while the trio of Sarah Tait, Emily Bryce and Madison Trippett were 10th, 11th and 13th.

A pair of Big East rivals, Georgetown’s Chloe Scrimgeour and Villanova’s Sadie Sigfstead, repeated their back-to-back finish from their conference meet two weeks ago. Scrimgeour and Sigfstead were third and fourth, respectively, in Leesburg, but they finished second and third today. Scrimgeour finished in 19:25, while Sigfstead was close behind in 19:30.

No. 20 Penn State, the host team and the third-ranked team in the Mid-Atlantic, took it out hard, coming through the halfway point in second place. Over the second half, though, they slipped, eventually finishing with 85 points, well behind Georgetown’s 58.

The individual auto-qualifiers for the national meet were Sigfstead, Penn State’s Florence Caron, La Salle’s Gwenno Goode, and Maryland’s Rose Coats. 

On the men’s side, Villanova continued what has been a dominant season for them, pulling away in the second half of the race to win with 50 points. Liam Murphy and Marco Langon repeated their 1-2 finish from the Big East Championships, with Murphy taking the overall win in 29:22 and Langon coming in second in 29:32.

At the halfway mark, the team race was exceptionally close; Navy, Villanova and Princeton were separated by just five points. The Wildcats benefited from several late-race surges, though, including one by freshman CJ Sullivan, who was in 38th place at the 5k mark and finished in 13th.

Princeton scored 80 points, led by a quartet of juniors – Myles Hogan, Nicholas Bendtsen, Jackson Shorten and Harrison Witt – in the top 25. They advanced to the NCAA Championships over Georgetown on a tiebreaker. The No. 29  Hoyas were in 10th place at the 1200 mark, and they gradually rose over the course of the race, but it wasn’t enough to top the Tigers. However, they are expected to make it to Nationals with an at-large bid.

The four automatic individual qualifiers for the men were Penn’s Dylan Throop, Penn State’s Brian DiCola, La Salle’s McCallum Rowe and Penn’s Luke Johnson.

The NCAA Cross Country Championships are Saturday, Nov. 23 at the Thomas Zimmer Championship Course in Madison, Wis.