Villanova's Nicky Akande Takes NCAA Regional CrownThird Place Women on Bubble for Nationals

Villanova's top 5 marking LaSalle's Meghan McGlinchey

Today at Penn State's Blue & White course, Villanova's Nicky Akande won the individual NCAA Mid-Atlantic regional title, with Emily Lipari in third, but the women faded a bit over the finals kilometers and came third in the team standing. They are now clearly in jeopardy of not gaining an invite to the national meet. The women dropped from the team lead at one mile, and the second spot at three miles, to finish third behind winner Penn State (61) and Georgetown (63). Villanova finished with 95 places, and Princeton was fourth with 101. Since only the top two teams at regionals are awarded an automatic berth at cross country nationals in Louisville, the Villanova women will have to hope for an at-large bid. Should that bid not be forthcoming, Nicky Akande (as regional winner) and Emily Lipari (who won the Big East individual title two weeks ago and who was 7th at Pre-Nationals) would likely be invited as at-large individual competitors.

Full results are HERE.

Here's how the Villanova women finished:

Villanova

 1.  Nicky Akande           20:14
 3.  Emily Lipari           20:27
14.  Summer Cook            20:52
33.  Courtney Chapman       21:42
45.  Megan Venables         21:58
51.  Sydney Harris          22:06
52.  Stephanie Schappert    22:06

Here's how the top five teams fared (places are individual, not team, places):

1.  Penn State    4-6-10-20-21     61
2.  Georgetown    5-11-13-16-18    63
3.  Villanova     1-3-14-33-45     95
4.  Princeton     8-12-17-28-36   101
5.  W. Virginia   7-22-24-27-33   111