SAN FRANCISCO — Senior Megan Rolland raced to an 11th-place finish at the NCAA Division II West Region Cross Country Championships, earning an individual berth in the national championships scheduled for Nov. 21 in Evansville, Ind.
Rolland also earned all-region status, reserved for the top 15 individuals. Earning all-region on the men's side was HSU's Drew Sylvester, who placed 15th, giving the Jacks their first male and female regional honorees in the same season for the first time since 2002.
"Megan is going to nationals to finish her collegiate cross country career right," HSU head coach Sandy Moran said. "She beat a lot of people she hadn't beaten before. She ran gutsy."
Rolland timed 21 minutes, 44.5 seconds on the 6-kilometer course in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, and joined Cal State LA's Vivien Wadeck. Her placement helped the HSU women take 11th overall among 25 schools competing in the team competition.
Alaska Anchorage won the women's competition with 35 points, ahead of runner-up Chico State's 58 points. Joining those two schools in qualifying for nationals as a team were third-place Seattle Pacific (75) and fourth-place Western Washington (121).
Humboldt State also had solid performances from redshirt freshman Bridget Berg in 33rd place and senior Amanda Garcia in 65th position. Irene Graham (86th) and Tess Dahlgren (109) were the Jacks' other scorers.
In the men's competition, Sylvester led the Jacks to a sixth-place finish among 20 schools, the spot they were ranked coming into the race. The sophomore was timed in 31:50.7 on the 10K course.
Eric Malain placed 20th for the Jacks, Nicholas Arguelles was 35th, Luis Galacia 43rd and Austin Huff 44th to round out the scoring pack. Only 1:37 separated the Jacks' top five.
"The guys raced well, but the placing just didn't work out to let us finish any higher," Moran said. "You can only control your own performance. They raced hard, and put it all out there."
Teams heading to nationals representing the west will be region champion Chico State, second-place Western Washington and third place Alaska Anchorage. Chico State topped the field with 42 points, while WWU had 74 and UAA 96.