The Syracuse Orange cross-country teams are in New York City this morning for the NCAA Northeast Regional Championships.
The women’s 6k race starts at 11:00 and the Orange will be battling Harvard and Providence for the two automatic qualifiers. Based on projections from xcquals.com, it looks like the Syracuse women could qualify as long as they finish 3rd in the regional, but that’s where it gets tricky.
Outside of the 18 automatic qualifiers, the remaining 13 teams are picked from the 3rd and 4th place regional finishers. A system based on points (wins) over the automatic qualifiers starts the process, but in some cases the team with the most points is a 4th place regional finisher, which automatically pushes in the 3rd place team from their region.