Simon Fraser University cross-country teams were happy campers at the NCAA Division II regional championships this weekend.
Rebecca Bassett and grad student Jennifer Johnson both finished in the top 10 to help the Clan women to a first-ever West Region title, while the SFU men's team earned a spot at its first national championship with a sixth-place finish at Amend Park in Billings, Montana last Saturday.
Bassett finished in third place in the six-kilometre women's race in a time of 21:15.22 just nine seconds behind race winner Katelyn Steen of Western Washington and three seconds back of runner-up Caroline Barkechir of Cal Baptist. Johnson finished up in eighth place.
All seven Clan women finished in the top 75.
Sophomore Peggy Noel was 20th, while freshman Miryam Bassett placed 33rd and sophomore Brittany Evans was 44th. Emma Chadsey came in 50th and junior Kansas MacKenzie placed 74th overall.
Three weeks earlier, the SFU women's team won its first Great Northwest conference cross-country title.
The men qualified behind a brave performance from Oliver Jorgensen, who gutted out a 48th-place finish despite still feeling the effects of a recent bout of pneumonia.
Marc-Antoine Rouleau was the Clan's top finisher in 26th place over the men's 10km distance.
"Oliver couldn't breathe midway through the race, so we had to throw him an inhaler and he caught it mid-air," said SFU head coach Britt Townsend in a press release. "He just gutted it out every step of the way. They all did. They just had the mindset that they needed to beat anyone in front of them to make it possible."
Great Northwest champion Henry Cheseto of Alaska Anchorage easily won the men's individual title, while Chico State placed four runners in the top 8 to take the men's team title.
"We are a young team, mainly track athletes gutting it out in cross-country. But this group has really come together when it matters," added Townsend in the release. "I'm really happy for them. They have earned everything they have achieved so far this year."
The Clan teams will both take part at the NCAA Div. II nationals in Louisville, Kentucky on Dec. 6.
Last year, the SFU women's team finished seventh overall at the national championships.
Academic all-conference
Six SFU cross-country runners earned academic all-conference honours.
Lorenzo Smith topped the Great Northwest conference with a 4.22 grade point average in biomedical physiology.
Cameraon Proceviat of Burnaby, with a 3.82 GPA inn molecular biology, and Brendan Wong, with a 3.32 GPA in kinesiology, joined Smith on the honour roll for a second consecutive season.
Peggy Noel, with a 3.45 GPA in business administration, also won academic all-conference for a second year.
First-timers included kinesiology majors sophomore Brittany Evans, with a 3.40 GPA, and junior Erina Cho at 3.28.
