SLIPPERY ROCK, Pa. – Slippery Rock University and Cooper's Lake Campground are set to host the 2016 NCAA Division II Atlantic Region Cross Country Championships Saturday, Nov. 5. A comprehensive preview, including course information and directions, coverage information, pertinent links and a breakdown of each race can be found below.

COOPER'S LAKE FACILITY
•  Facility Homepage
•  Course Maps:  Men's 10k  |  Women's 6k
 
The cross country courses at Cooper's Lake have become known for their ability to host championship caliber races. The courses feature a challenging layout of rolling hills with a large hill at the beginning and a flat and straight finish. The courses are among the most spectator-friendly courses in the region as fans can see nearly the entire course from one central location. 
 
DIRECTIONS
• Take I-79 to Exit 99 (Butler). Turn left at the end of the exit ramp and proceed to the first road to your right following the travel plaza. Follow that road back to Cooper's Lake Campground. Ample parking is available adjacent to the course.
• Google Maps Location
 
SCHEDULE
• 10:30 a.m. – Men's 10,000m Championship
• 11:45 a.m. – Women's 6,000m Championship
• Approximately 12:30 p.m. – Awards Ceremony
 
LIVE COVERAGE
• Twitter

The Slippery Rock athletic communication office will be sending out live updates, including photo and video updates, through Twitter during and after the event. Follow the @PSACTF account on Twitter for live coverage throughout the day.
 
CHAMPIONSHIP HOMEPAGE
• SRU Event Homepage
• NCAA Portal (Team Info, Box Assignments, Participant Manual)
 
NATIONAL QUALIFYING PROCEDURE
The top four men's teams and the top three women's teams will automatically qualify to compete in the NCAA Division II National Championships. All individual runners that place in the top five, regardless of their team, will automatically earn a spot in the national field. If runners in the top five are already members of a team that earns a spot, the first three finishers not on a qualified team will earn a trip to nationals.
 
ALL-REGION HONOREES
The top 25 individual finishers in each race will be recognized as All-Region honorees during the awards ceremony following the women's race. The All-Region honors are presented by the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association.
 
MEN'S TEAM PREVIEW
The top three men's teams in the region would have to have an off day to not punch their ticket to the national meet. Shippensburg, Lock Haven and Edinboro have established themselves this season as being a notch above the rest of the field, as evidenced by the PSAC Championship results where there was an 84-point gap between Edinboro in third and Bloomsburg in fourth.
 
The battle for the top spot should be fierce between the top three teams. Shippensburg edged Lock Haven by just seven points at the PSAC meet and is loaded with experience, returning six of seven scores from last season. Lock Haven is much younger, but will be led by the overall favorite in Addison Monroe. Edinboro finished just nine points back of Lock Haven at the PSAC meet and was led by a true freshman in Bryan Geehrer.  The biggest factor in deciding the title could be how well the top three react to bumping up in distance to 10,000-meters for the first time this season, an element that should favor the experience of defending champion Shippensburg's squad.
 
Behind the battle for the title, perhaps the most exciting race will come down to which team can secure the fourth and final national qualifying spot. Bloomsburg has had a strong season with only one senior in its lineup and finished fourth at the PSAC meet with a 42-point cushion on Kutztown. East Stroudsburg was just seven points back and the top two teams from the Mountain East Conference, Concord and West Virginia Wesleyan, could also factor into the battle for the final spot. Mercyhurst and Slippery Rock enter as the ninth and 10th seeded teams in the race. It would take an upset for any teams outside of those listed above to sneak into that fourth spot in the men's race.   
 
LAST FIVE MEN'S CHAMPIONS
• 2015: Shippensburg
• 2014: Lock Haven
• 2013: Lock Haven
• 2012: Edinboro
• 2011: Edinboro
 
MEN'S REGIONAL RANKINGS
1. Shippensburg (PSAC Champion)
2. Lock Haven
3. Edinboro
4. Bloomsburg
5. Kutztown
6. East Stroudsburg
7. Concord (MEC Champion)
8. West Virginia Wesleyan
9. Mercyhurst
10. Slippery Rock
 
MEN'S INDIVIDUAL PREVIEW
The men's race will feature a total of 15 runners that earned All-Region honors by placing in the top 25 at last year's championship hosted by Lock Haven. The highest returning finisher is Shippensburg's Kieran Sutton, who was second last year. He is the only one of the top four finishers returning this year, but finishers 5-11 are all back, setting up for an exciting race at the front of the field.
 
The individual favorite on paper entering the meet is likely Lock Haven's Addison Monroe, who was 10th last year but has had a dominant fall in 2016 and ran away with the PSAC title by 10 seconds. The question will be how he transitions to the 10,000-meter distance, as Shippensburg's Sutton posted the fastest 10k time in the PSAC and one of the fastest in the country during last spring's track and field season.
 
Edinboro freshman Bryan Geehrer was just 10 seconds back of Monroe at the PSAC meet and will be hoping to push for a title in his first crack at the collegiate 10k distances. Slippery Rock's Jeremy Parsons was sixth at last year's meet and was the second finisher from the region at the national meet last fall. He will have the comfort of running at home and is one of the runners at the front of the field that actually prefers the increase in distance from 8,000 to 10,000-meters.
 
Alex Balla of Shippensburg was fifth last year and teammates Braden Bruning and Calvin Conrad-Kline were eighth and ninth. Dominic Stroh was 11th last year, giving the Raiders five scorers in the top 11 and all five return this year.
 
Steve Maine of Kutztown is the other top 10 finisher from last year returning this year with hopes of improving on his seventh place finish. Also expected to push for spots in the top 15 are Mountain East Conference champion Jason Weitzel of Concord, Indiana's Austin Cooper, Lock Haven's Jacob Fetterman and Sean Weidner, Edinboro's Corey Wefing and Jon Gusew, Mercyhurst's Jacob Eneix and Bloomsburg's Daniel Neiswender.
 
TOP MEN'S INDIVIDUAL CONTENDERS
• Addison Monroe – Lock Haven (PSAC Champion)
• Bryan Geehrer – Edinboro (PSAC Runner-Up)
• Kieran Sutton – Shippensburg
• Jeremy Parsons – Slippery Rock (All-American last year)
• Austin Cooper – Indiana (Pa.)
• Jacob Fetterman – Lock Haven
• Braden Bruning – Shippensburg
• Alexander Balla – Shippensburg
• Steve Maine – Kutztown
• Sean Weidner – Lock Haven
• Corey Wefing – Edinboro
• Calvin Conrad-Kline – Shippensburg
• Jacob Eneix – Mercyhurst
• Daniel Neiswender – Bloomsburg
• Jon Gusew – Edinboro
• Jason Weitzel – Concord (MEC Champion)
• Justin Snyder – Concord (MEC Runner-Up)
• Matt Dearth – West Virginia Wesleyan
 
WOMEN'S TEAM PREVIEW
The women's team race appears to be a battle between two teams for the top spot, with a gap back to the rest of the field. Shippensburg claimed the PSAC title, edging out Bloomsburg by just 10 points. There was an 89-point gap back to East Stroudsburg in third place, but just 49 points separated the Warriors in third place and California (Pa.) in eighth place.
 
The race for the team title should be electric between Shippensburg and Bloomsburg as the two teams are nearly evenly matched from their second through fifth runners. The edge goes to the Raiders thanks to frontrunner Casey Norton, who enters this weekend as one of the favorites for individual glory. Behind Norton, the rest of the scorers on each team finished in nearly the same times with the fifth scorer for each squad coming in within one second of each other at the PSAC meet.
 
Barring poor performances or injury, it looks like Shippensburg and Bloomsburg will be headed to the national meet based on the strength of each roster. Much like the men's race, the most exciting battle could be which team comes home third and earns the final spot in the national meet. East Stroudsburg was third at the PSAC meet, but finished just 11 points ahead of Lock Haven and just 14 points ahead of Seton Hill, which gets a bump from Chelsia Poole, who is expected to contend for the win. Kutztown was just 29 points behind ESU at the PSAC meet and Edinboro was eight points further back. California was 49 points back of ESU in eighth place. Mountain East Champion Wheeling Jesuit is ranked eighth in the region and could contend for that spot as well. Slippery Rock is the 10th ranked team in the region. One of those teams mentioned above is the most likely to break into the top three.
 
LAST FIVE WOMEN'S CHAMPIONS
• 2015: California (Pa.)
• 2014: Edinboro
• 2013: Edinboro
• 2012: Shippensburg
• 2011: Shippensburg
 
WOMEN'S REGIONAL RANKINGS
1. Shippensburg (PSAC Champion)
2. Bloomsburg
3. East Stroudsburg
4. Lock Haven
5. Seton Hill
6. Kutztown
7. Edinboro
8. Wheeling Jesuit (MEC Champion)
9. California (Pa.)
10. Slippery Rock
 
WOMEN'S INDIVIDUAL PREVIEW
Unlike the men's race, which features seven of the top 10 finishers from last year, the women's race returns none of the top four finishers and just three of the top 10 from last year's regional meet hosted by Lock Haven.
 
On paper, the two favorites for the individual title are Shippensburg's Casey Norton and Seton Hill's Chelsia Poole, who just battled to a photo finish at the PSAC meet two weeks ago. Norton was awarded the win with a lean at the line, setting up an exciting rematch this week. Norton, who has raced and won on the SRU course already once this year, finished fifth at the regional meet last year and is the top returner. Poole was 10th and is the third highest returning runner from last year. East Stroudsburg's Allison Decker was the sixth finisher last year.
 
Norton and Poole appear to be a step ahead of the rest of the runners in the region this year as they finished 20 seconds ahead of the third place finisher, Summer Hill from California, at the PSAC meet. Hill is leading the defending champions in the absence of Julie Friend, who is redshirting this season. Emma Sullivan of Edinboro and Caitlyn Reese of Shippensburg rounded out the top five at the PSAC meet and will be looking for top five finishes again this week.
 
A total of nine runners ran under 23:00 at the PSAC Championships with Bloomsburg and Shippensburg each having three of the nine. The Huskies hopes to a team title will lean on top runners Keelan McDonald, Teresa Ortiz and Hannah Boudreau. Shippensburg's Bryanna Dissinger joins Norton and Reese in forming the Raiders top three.
 
Also expected to compete for a spot in the top 15 this weekend are the other two conference champions in the field with Mountain East champion Kelsey Chambers of Wheeling Jesuit and CIAA champion Domtila Kiplagat of Winston-Salem State both entering in good form. Kiplagat and West Virginia Wesleyan's Sydney Pineault were All-Region last year.
 
Other PSAC runners expected to be near the front of the race include Jenna Lezanic of Indiana (Pa.), Stephanie Bresadola of Kutztown, Kaylyn West of East Stroudsburg, Amanda Schultz of Lock Haven, Jessica Quesenberry of Bloomsburg, Diana Dunn from West Chester and Allison McCurry of Mansfield. Slippery Rock's top hope for an All-Region finish is Courtney Group, who was 24th at the PSAC Championships, but will have the benefit of running on her home course.
 
TOP WOMEN'S INDIVIDUAL CONTENDERS
• Casey Norton – Shippensburg (PSAC Champion)
• Chelsia Poole – Seton Hill (PSAC Runner-Up)
• Summer Hill – California
• Emma Sullivan – Edinboro
• Caitlyn Reese – Shippensburg
• Keelan McDonald – Blomsburg
• Bryanna Dissinger – Shippensburg
• Teresa Ortiz – Bloomsburg
• Hannah Boudreau – Bloomsburg
• Jenna Lezanic – Indiana
• Stephanie Bresadola – Kutztown
• Kaylyn West – East Stroudsburg
• Amanda Schultz – Lock Haven
• Jessica Quesenberry – Bloomsburg
• Diana Dunn – West Chester
• Allison McCurry - Mansfield
• Kelsey Chambers – Wheeling Jesuit (MEC Champion)
• Kelsey Kaitlyn Workman - Wheeling Jesuit (MEC Runner-Up)
• Sydney Pineault – West Virginia Wesleyan
• Domtila Kiplagat – Winston-Salem State (CIAA Champion)
 
RESULTS AND PHOTOS
Results will be compiled by Run High Timing Services and will be posted to the Run High website shortly after the conclusion of each race. Results will also be posted to the SRU championship homepage as soon as possible after the conclusion of the awards ceremony. 
 
A photo gallery of the day's action will be posted to the SRU championship homepage as soon as possible Saturday afternoon following the conclusion of the awards ceremony.