MOREHEAD, Ky. — The NCAA Southeast Region Championships returns to Spartanburg, S.C., for the first time since 2023 and the Morehead State men's and women's cross country teams will look to continue their successes from the Ohio Valley Conference Championship meet two weeks ago when the Eagles hit the course at the Roger Milliken Research Park course next to the University of South Carolina Upstate campus on Friday.
The top two teams and four individuals not on those squads will earn automatic bids to the NCAA Championship, which will be held on the LaVern Gibson Championship Course in Terre Haute, Ind., on Saturday, Nov. 21. Across the country, nine regional meets will be held on Friday. In addition to the automatic qualifiers, a total of 13 at-large teams and two individuals from that field will be selected for the NCAA finals.
Each team is allowed to enter seven competitors for each race. In total, 48 schools with upwards of 300 runners in each gender are expected to toe the line. The Southeast Region is made up of Division I teams from the states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Kentucky.
The women's 6K race will begin the day at 10 a.m., followed by the men's 10K at 11 a.m. MSU finished 28th (men) and 30th (women) in the 2023 meet and last year were 31st (men) and 36th (women), but based on the Blue and Gold's recent results that included the best individual OVC finishes since 2001, Coach
Clay Dixon thinks this year will be different.
"We are going to compete against the best in the southeast of the country. This region is the deepest of all the nine regions in the NCAA, with seven men's and six women's programs ranked nationally," he said. "(Doctoral student Aidan) Massey and (freshman) Shelby (Lamb) both had great OVC races and were are excited to see how they fair up front."
Massey placed third at the conference meet, leading the men's team to a fourth-place finish, while Lamb won her race, helping the women's squad to place fifth. It was MSU's best team results since 2017 and 2018, respectively.
Massey, who bettered his 2025 OVC result by two places and 14.54 seconds, moved into third on MSU's all-time list. His time of 24:14.56 was a "pr" by 6.14 seconds and would have won the meet in five of the last eight years.
Massey's performance was the best for an MSU male since Paul Gilvin placed second in 2001. His time was the fastest ever 8K for an Eagle at the OVC Championship meet, bettering the previous best mark of Justin Moakler of 24:20.82 in 2017.
Lamb won the OVC title in a school-record time of 20:36.80, with a winning margin of 49.87 seconds, the largest margin of victory in conference women's championship history since 2005, when Samford's Lauren Blankenship captured the title by 1:15.29 seconds. Since going to a 6K for the women's race in 2022, no one in OVC Championship history has run faster than Lamb did on Friday. For her efforts, she was named the OVC Female of the Championship.
Lamb's time obliterated her previous "pr" of 21:32.56 and surpassed the school record of 20:49.50 held by Sierra Poppell, who posted that mark in 2018. Lamb became just the second runner to go under 21 minutes ever at MSU.
Friday will be Massey's final collegiate race, while Lamb will run just her third 6K.
Yet, the Eagles will be more than just those two. Ten of the Eagles who ran at the OVC's set "pr's", with virtually every MSU female bettering their mark by over a minute. Five of the Blue and Gold entries earned spots on the Morehead State top performers' list, with sophomore
Isabelle Shearer, freshman
Emma Coakley and freshman
Lucas Simpson joining Massey and Lamb.
Dixon has entered seven men and seven women in Friday's regionals, including Lamb, Shearer, Coakley, junior
Meredith Campbell, freshman
Audrey Adkins, freshman
Parker Mentzer and senior
Adi Fuller. Sophomore
Sydney Filippazzo will be an alternate. Massey, Simpson, junior
Ryan Richendollar, sophomore
Lance Garner, junior
Brody Coleman, senior Aidan Whitesell and freshman
Jake Hagan representing the men.
"Our men's team was only 10 points away from a second-place finish at OVC(s), so we think we can compete well here," Dixon said. "The women had their best finish in (the) OVC since 2018 and we hope to carry that over. This squad is competitive and earned these spots."
It will be the first regional appearance for Lamb, Shearer, Coakley, Adkins, Mentzer, Simpson, Garner, Coleman and Hagan. It also will be the Eagle men's first 10K this season and consequently the first for the three men. The school record for the distance is 29:41.80. Massey sits 12th on the MSU list with a top time of 31:40.40, which he set after placing 87th at last year's regionals.
Campbell, Richendollar and Whitsell will each be making their third appearance at the meet. Campbell was 221st in 23:39.0 in 2025 and 193rd in 24:13.1 in 2024. Richendollar was 193rd in 34:00.5 in 2025 and 130th in 32:54.3 in 2024, while Whitsell was 214th in 24:43.3 in 2025 and 227th in 36:12.9 in 2024. The only other Eagle to run at the regionals was Fuller, who finished 217th in 23:35.4 last fall.
The MSU men's best team result at the meet in recent years was 10th in 2017. Farah Abdulkarim placed 23rd that year. The top women's finish was 15th in 2018, when Sierra Poppell placed 27th.
In 2025, Wake Forest captured the men's team title with 55 points, topping runner-up Eastern Kentucky by 13 points. Demon Deacon junior Rocky Hanson was the first male across the finish line, covering the course in 29:10.4, more than nine seconds faster than second-place finisher Elsingi Kipruto of Louisville. North Carolina State claimed its ninth straight women's crown, collecting 55 points. South Carolina was second with 100 points. South Carolina freshman Salma Elbadra was the individual champ, finishing in 19:03.1. N.C. State's Hannah Gapes was second in 19:08.3.
Wake Forest, Virginia Tech, Eastern Kentucky, Furman and Duke are the top five men's teams according to the most recent U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) regional rankings. The top four of that group appear in the national top 25. North Carolina State, South Carolina, Clemson, Virginia Tech, North Carolina, Duke and Virginia lead the women's rankings. All are among the top 25 nationally.
Live results from the meet can be found at the link:
www.flashresults.com/2027_Meets/xc/NCAASE/index.htm.
Unless someone qualifies for the NCAA Championships, Friday's races will be the final ones of the season. The indoor track and field campaign is slated to begin in three weeks on Saturday, Dec. 5 at the Marshall Opener.
