UC Santa Cruz Earns Spot in NCAA Championship Race

SANTA CRUZ, Ca. – On Sunday afternoon, the NCAA Division III Men's and Women's Track and Field and Cross Country Committee announced the participants for the 2024 NCAA Division III Men's and Women's Cross Country Championships. The National Championship races will take place at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology on Nov. 23 at the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course at the Wabash Valley Family Sports Center in Terre Haute, Indiana. The women's race will begin at 11 a.m. Eastern, followed by the men's race at noon Eastern.

The UC Santa Cruz women's cross country program was selected for their third-consecutive appearance at the NCAA Division III Cross Country Championships by way of an at-large bid. The Banana Slugs took third overall at the NCAA West Region Championships behind Claremont-Mudd-Scripps and Colorado College. Kenzie Seymour and Helena Janku led the charge as the duo both finished inside the top 10 with Seymour in third and Janku in seventh. The Slugs roster featured a strong group with four All-Region runners as Hanna Hekkanen and Jordan Baden joined Seymour and Janku with top 35 finishes while Sara Teitelbaum, Jordan Robinson, and Faith Dyogi round out the top seven runners for UCSC from the Regional line up.

On the men's side, Luke Holland and Eric Anderson were selected to represent UC Santa Cruz as two of 70 individual qualifiers for the NCAA Division III Cross Country National Championship. They earned their selection with ninth and 14th place finishes, respectively, with the NCAA taking the first seven non-qualifying team student-athletes to the Championship.

See below for the NCAA Selection Criteria:
"In order to be eligible to participate in the championships, teams and individuals had to qualify in their respective NCAA regional competitions held this weekend.

Thirty-two teams were selected to participate in each championship. The top seven-person team automatically qualified from each of the 10 regions. Twenty-two additional teams were selected at-large.

Seventy individuals, the first seven student-athletes from each region who are not a part of a qualifying team, were selected to participate in each championship." – NCAA.com

Click or tap here for the complete list of qualifiers

Players Mentioned

Eric Anderson

Jordan Baden

Faith Dyogi

Hanna Hekkanen

Luke Holland

Helena Janku

Jordan Robinson

Kenzie Seymour

Sara Teitelbaum

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