INDIANAPOLIS (Nov. 13) – Saint Vincent College freshman Kristen Prince has qualified to compete in the 2022 NCAA Division III National Cross Country Championship this Saturday, Nov. 19, in East Lansing, Michigan.
 
By virtue of her 11th-place finish at Saturday's Mid-Atlantic Regional Championship, the NCAA has announced that Prince (Prince Frederick, Md./Calvert) earned an at-large spot in the national championship field. She becomes just the second Saint Vincent College female runner to qualify for the NCAA Championship in program history, joining Ivette Mejia, who did so in 2011. Prince is one of just three runners from the Presidents' Athletic Conference who will compete at this year's national meet.
 
At the regional championship race, Prince covered the 6-kilometer course at Lock Haven University in 22 minutes, 32 seconds to place 11th in a field of 209 runners. It was the highest regional finish for an SVC runner since Mejia's ninth-place effort in 2011.
 
Prince's NCAA Championship appearance caps off a banner rookie year. Prior to her effort at regionals, Prince earned first team All-Presidents' Athletic Conference accolades and was named the PAC Newcomer of the Year after placing third in a 109-runner field at the PAC Championship, held at Saint Vincent on Oct. 29. It was her third top-five finish of the season, as she placed fifth at the Saint Vincent Invitational on Sept. 9 and second in her collegiate debut at the Westminster Fisher Invitational on Sept. 2.
 
Her freshman campaign has also included a 17th-place finish in a field of 282 runners at the highly competitive Oberlin Inter-Regional Rumble on Oct. 15 and a 34th-place effort in a 285-runner field at the Lock Haven Invitational on Sept. 24, a race that featured nearly a dozen Division I and II squads.
 
The 2022 NCAA Division III Women's Cross Country Championship will be hosted by Olivet College on the campus of Michigan State University. The race will begin at 11 a.m. Eastern.