Tournament Field Announcement

STEVENS POINT - Senior Nick Schaefer (New London) will be UW-Stevens Point's representative at the 2009 NCAA Division III Cross Country Championships on Saturday, Nov. 21, at Highland Hills Golf Course in Highland Hills, Ohio. Baldwin-Wallace College is slated to host the event.

In order to be eligible to participate in the championships, teams and individuals must qualify in their respective NCAA regions.

Thirty-two teams were selected to participate in each championship. The top two, seven person teams automatically qualified from each of the eight regions, for a total of 16 teams. Sixteen additional teams were selected at-large.

Schaefer is part of the fifty-six individuals, the first seven athletes from each region who are not a part of a qualifying team, who were selected to participate in each championship. He finished 23rd at Saturday's Midwest Regional in Winneconne with a time of 25:04.

Last season, when the Pointers finished fourth at the NCAA Championships as a team, Schaefer finished 174th in a field of 278 runners, posting a time of 26:00.66.

Schaefer will see some familiar faces when he travels to Ohio as three Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (WIAC) men's teams received bids to the championship. UW-La Crosse, UW-Eau Claire and UW-Platteville will compete for a men's national championship this Saturday. Three WIAC women's teams also qualified for the event, as Eau Claire, La Crosse and UW-Oshkosh received bids to the field.

The women's race will begin at 11 a.m. Eastern time followed by the men's race at noon Eastern time.