Eastern Michigan Athletics

Friday, November 9
Terre Haute, Ind.
11:15 a.m.

Eastern Michigan University

at

NCAA Great Lakes Regional

Cizmas and Meyers running in 2018 WXC MAC Championship

Women's Cross Country Finishes Sixth in NCAA Great Lakes Regional

11/9/2018 4:36:00 PM | Women's XC

Meyers and Cizmas each finished in the top-15

Complete Results

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (EMUEagles.com)
— The Eastern Michigan University women's cross country team finished sixth at the NCAA Great Lakes Regional Championship Friday, Nov. 9, in Terre Haute, Ind. The Eagles finished with two harriers in the top-15, while the team posted a collective score of 231 points.

"It was a good performance for us," said EMU Head Coach Sue Parks. "Our 1-5 were very solid. Sixth place was the best that we could have finished today. Sydney Meyers and Natalie Cizmas had strong races against tough competition. It was the first regional meet for our other five runners and I know that they will learn from this experience. I'm proud of our effort today."

Senior Sydney Meyers (Zionsville, Ind.-Zionsville Community) continued her impressive 2018 campaign, leading the Eagles with a 10th-place finish in 20:47. That finish is 24 places higher than where she concluded last year's meet (34th), while also warranting all-region honors for the second time in her career.

Redshirt senior Natalie Cizmas (Clinton Twp., Mich.-Chippewa Valley) also resumed her strong season, finishing 15th overall with a time of 20:53. She too showed monumental improvement from last year's competition, finishing 25 places higher (40th). Additionally, Cizmas' top-25 finish earned her all-region honors, the second of her career.

In just her second postseason competition donning the Green and White, junior Emily Smith (Somerset, England-Wells Cathedral School) concluded the meet in 45th with a personal-best 6k mark of 21:27. Rounding out EMU's scoring harriers were sophomores Madison Distelrath (Fort Wayne, Ind.-Homestead) and Ashleigh Simonis (Cape Town, South Africa-Milnerton), who crossed 64th and 97th with times of 21:56 and 22:25, respectively.

As the Eagles did not end up securing a top-two finish, they will now wait to see if they have earned an at-large bid to the upcoming NCAA Championships, which will be announced this weekend. If they do qualify as a team, it would mark just the fourth time in program history that the team qualified to the meet. However, based on their performances, Meyers and Cizmas have a good shot at qualifying as individuals to the championship meet.

Team Results
1. Michigan                  46
2. Wisconsin                82
3. Michigan State        89
4. Notre Dame            100
5. Indiana                    137
6. Eastern Michigan  231
7. Ohio State              265
8. Purdue                   280
9. Toledo                    297
10. Butler                   316

EMU Individual Results (* denotes personal-best)
10. Sydney Meyers         20:47
15. Natalie Cizmas          20:53
45. Emily Smith               21:27*
64. Madison Distelrath    21:56
97. Ashleigh Simonis      22:25
139. Kaitlyn St. Bernard 23:05
206. Lexi Seifert              25:29
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