NCAA Great Lakes Championship Central Website

The University of Dayton men's country program travels to Madison, Wis. for the 2012 NCAA Great Lakes Regional Championship on Friday Nov. 9 hosted by the University of Wisconsin. The race takes place on the Thomas Zimmer Championships Cross Country Course. The men's 10k race begins at 1:15 p.m.

"The course is an excellent test for cross country," said UD Head Men's Coach Rich Davis. "It has a lot of rolling hills and is groomed immaculately for cross country racing."

The top two qualifying teams from each regional automatically advance to the NCAA Championship Meet with 13 at large teams selected to also participate. The top four individuals from the meet not on a qualifying team also receive invitations to participate in the NCAA Championships.

"On the men's side we will see great competition with four nationally ranked teams in our region," said Davis. "Traditionally our region qualifies two or three at large teams in addition to the top two teams."

The men are coming off a sixth place finish at the Atlantic 10 Championships. Dayton finished ahead of regionally-ranked Richmond (No. 13 in Southeast Region) and Massachusetts (No. 15 in Northeast Region).

"A-10's were interesting because I believe we ran the best execution of our team race than any team out there," said Davis. "We were one of two teams to have all seven runners move up from their first mile to their last mile. We also were the only team to move four places from the first mile to the last mile moving up to sixth."

Greg Roeth led the squad missing All-Conference honors by three spots; placing 18th in a time of 26:18. Eric Gruenbacher (26:40) placed 33rd, Tyler Roeth (26:42) placed 39th, Kyle Lowry (26:44) came in 44th and Jeremy Schiele (26:46) finished in 45th.

"At the Great Lakes I expect more of the same," said Davis. "We will build a plan and execute. We had been ranked as high as 15th in the region this season and want to prove we deserve to be a top 15 team in the region."

Last year the men finished 18th at the 2011 NCAA Great Lakes Regional.  Greg Roeth led the team placing 45th in 31:24 good enough for the sixth best 10k in school history. Jeremy Schiele came across next in 67th place in a time of 31:45. This time gave Schiele the ninth best 10k time in school history.

"This is the most important race of our season," said Davis. "This is how we build our reputation to people who follow the sport. Our reputation is built on our seniors and our team will be defined by our seniors. I look for them to show leadership as this is the last meet of their regular season."
 
Written by Dan Eisier, Athletics Communication Student, Class of 2013