AUBURN, Ala. – The Auburn cross country team starts postseason competition Friday at the NCAA South Regional at the Mark Bostick Golf Course in Gainesville, Florida. The women's 6k race will start at 7:30 a.m. CT and the men's 10k at 8:30 a.m. CT. The south region is one of nine regions nationally that will be contesting races Friday with hopes of qualifying for the NCAA Championships on November 18.
"This group wants to be a nationally qualifying team," said Auburn cross country coach Aaron Kindt. "In order to do that you have to run your best at the end of the year. I am asking them to do everything they can to put themselves in a position that if the dominos fall our way, we are there to take advantage of it."
The women will compete against 30 teams and the men will compete against 25. There are five teams nationally recognized in the latest edition of the USTFCCCA poll. On the women's side, it includes No. 15 Tennessee, No. 16 Alabama, No. 19 Lipscomb, and No. 24 Ole Miss. The men will face off against No. 18 Alabama, No. 21 Tennessee, and No. 29 Florida State.
The men will also run against SEC rivals including Florida, Georgia and Vanderbilt. The women will race Florida, Georgia, Mississippi State, and Vanderbilt.
Led by senior Ryan Kinnane, the Auburn men are looking to continue their momentum after finishing fifth at the SEC Championships two weeks ago. Kinnane finished ninth with a time of 23:13.30 over the 8k to earn All-SEC second team honors. The SEC Male Scholar Athlete of the Year will be competing in his third NCAA Regional race and will be vying to qualify for his second consecutive NCAA Cross Country Championships after finishing seventh at the regional a year ago.
"The men's 10k will always be a challenge for the field, but with this group they've embraced challenges all year," said Kindt.
Freshman Max Hardin was the third freshman finisher at SECs with a time of 24:13.00. For his efforts, the Auburn, Alabama native was named to the All-SEC Freshman Team.
Lacing up alongside Kinnane and Hardin will be seniors Carson Bedics and Dustyn Lewis, juniors Cooper Atkins and Louis O'Loughlin, sophomores Joseph Perry and Ethan Snyder and freshman Fuji Anday.
"On the women's side, we want to show people that we can get it done at the championship meets," said Kindt. "The SEC meet was a little bit of a disappointment with the result. The effort was there, but we had some tough bounces that did not go our way at the end."
Leading the Tigers throughout the season has been sophomore Gené Coetzee who will be running her second NCAA Regionals. She was the top women's finisher for the Tigers at the SEC Championships in 25th place and she was followed by freshman Mary Mac Collins who was 58th overall.
Collins will be joined by fellow freshman Audrey Dunn, Ava McIntosh, Cady McPhail, sophomores Shelby Balding and Hailey Marston, juniors Hallie Porterfield and Hannah Thuss and graduate student Hannah Tarwater.
"This weekend, with this group, I want to be able to finish on a high note."
Of 30 total schools competing for the women and 25 for the men, only the top two in each race will automatically punch their tickets to compete at nationals in Charlottesville, Virginia in two weeks. The first four regional finishers not from an automatic qualifying or at-large team also secure an auto-bid to the championships.
If a team doesn't secure an automatic bid, it will have to rely on the NCAA DI Cross Country Subcommittee to select it as one of the 13 at-large teams. Only two individual at-larges are selected, making a strong regional performance pivotal to advancing toward a national title.
Live timing and results for both races will be available at https://live.pttiming.com/xc-ptt.html?mid=5855