The Florida women’s cross country team has a chance to do something today its never done before in its 30-year history — win a national title.
The No. 5 Gators will compete in the NCAA Championships with 30 other teams today at 12:58 p.m. in Terre Haute, Ind. The 6K race will be televised live on Versus as well as being streamed on NCAA.com
UF has finished no lower than fourth in any of its six races in 2009 and is coming off back-to-back wins in the Southeastern Conference Championship and the NCAA South Regional.
Florida, the SEC’s lone qualifier, finished second among 37 teams in the Pre-NCAA Invitational on Oct. 17, which is run on the same course as today’s race.
“This is a program that has never finished in the top 10 before and that was one of our goals at the beginning of the season,” said coach Todd Morgan, recently named South Region Women’s Coach of the Year. “Things have gone so well and we want to set our sights a little higher. We want to see how high we can finish and that’s kind of the new goal.”
This is the fourth consecutive year the Gators have qualified for the NCAA Championships, although they have never finished in the top 10. Their previous best finish was 11th in 2007.
UF is coming on strong of late, however.
Three of Florida’s five scoring runners at the NCAA South Regional placed in the top five, led by the race’s individual winner, redshirt sophomore Rebecca Lowe. The South Regional Female Athlete of the Year has paced the Gators’ last two victories, winning both individual titles after not even leading the team in her first two competitions of the year (Notre Dame Invitational and Pre-NCAA Invitational).
The Gators’ biggest competition will likely come from the only team to beat them on this course earlier in the year — defending national champion and top-ranked Washington. The Huskies returned their entire squad from the 2008 title-winning team.
Florida hopes to get some revenge today.
“We’ve been waiting for this for so long,” junior Charlotte Browning said. “This is the weekend that counts. I think we are in the best shape we have been in all season.”
Lowe and Browning will be competing along with Stacey Johnson, Laura Garrow, Genevieve LaCaze, Julie Northrup and Kaitlin Shiver.
