Slippery Rock University Athletics

Slippery Rock University sophomore cross country runner Jeremy Parsons made the most of his first career trip to a National Championship by earning All-America honors Saturday at the NCAA Division II national meet.

Parsons was the first Rock male to be competing in the national meet since 2008 and is the first SRU All-American since Pat Reagan and Jeff Weiss earned the honor in 2007. He is just the fifth individual male in SRU cross country history to earn All-America honors at the Division II level. Eric Laughlin (1991-93) and Weiss (2005-07) each did it three times and Reagan (2007) and Dave Slavinski (1991) did it once.
 
Parsons covered the 10,000-meter (6.2 miles) course in 30:14 to finish with an average pace of 4:52 per mile.
 
His All-America finish came after a methodic march through the field as he opened the first 2,000-meters in 94th place. Over the final five miles he passed 70 runners to move up to his finishing spot of 24th.
 
Parsons climbed from 94th at the 2k mark up to 41st at the 5,000-meter midway mark, which he covered in 15:08. He then moved up to 29th at the next split just before the 7k mark before moving up five more spots over the final two miles.