Heidi Baumbach Invited to NCAA Cross Country Championships
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Junior Heidi Baumbach (Lake Placid/Lake Placid) will return to the NCAA Championships for the third consecutive year as she tallied all-region honors on Saturday en route to earning an individual invitation to the NCAA Division III championship meet on Nov. 20 in Waverly, Iowa. Fifty-six individuals were selected to participate in the championship. Baumbach was one of the first seven finishers from the Atlantic Region, who was not a part of a qualifying team, selected to advance the national race.
Baumbach ran to a ninth-place finish at the Atlantic Region Championships hosted by Oneonta at Fortin Park on Saturday morning. She paced the Bombers to a seventh-place finish out of a 33-team field.
Earning all-region honors for the second consecutive year, Baumbach finished the six-kilometer course in a career-best 22 minutes, 38.90 seconds to improve her ranking on Ithaca’s all-time record list to ninth.
Baumbach led the Bombers at the 2009 NCAA National Championship by finishing 136th overall in 23:52. She had improved 13 spots on her 149th-place showing as a freshman on the 6K course.