For Immediate Release
November 16, 2009
Wellesley Sports Information
Wellesley's Randelle Boots Qualifies for NCAA Championships
WELLESLEY, Mass. – Wellesley College first-year Randelle Boots (Seekonk, MA) has earned automatic qualification to the upcoming NCAA National Championships.
Boots earned her spot in the race with a 19th-place, All-Region performance at last Saturday's New England Regional. With Middlebury, MIT, Williams, Amherst and Wesleyan qualifying for the team championship, Boots was an automatic individual qualifier as one of the top seven finishers among the runners who were not on a qualifying team.
Boots becomes the first Wellesley rookie in history to advance to the NCAA Championships, and the first Blue runner of any class since Tracy Bassett '06 qualified for the 2005 race. Her qualification comes after a spectacular season in which she earned All-Region, NEWMAC All-Conference and All-Seven Sisters honors. Boots also took the individual title at the 2009 Pop Crowell Invitational, the largest race ever won by a Wellesley student-athlete.
"It's remarkable that Randelle qualified for the NCAA championship in her first Regional competition and first race at the 6000-meter distance," said Wellesley Head Coach John Babington. "She ran a smart, confident, aggressive race, turning the tables on a good number of top New England runners who had beaten her in earlier meets. As the first Wellesley first-year to qualify for cross country Nationals, Randelle has a great learning experience ahead of her."
Hosted by Baldwin-Wallace College, the NCAA Division III Cross Country Championship will be held on Saturday, November 21 at Highland Park Golf Course in Highland Hills, Ohio.