Walker heads to NCAA Championships

FAYETTEVILLE – Senior Miranda Walker will represent the University of Arkansas women’s cross country team Monday at the 2010 NCAA Championships. The women’s 6K race is scheduled for an 11:08 a.m. (CT) start time at the LaVerrn Gibson Championship Course in Terre Haute, Ind. The national meet will be streamed live at NCAA.com.

"Miranda is a great leader for us," head coach Lance Harter said. "It was really a heartbreaker for the team because they were devoted to getting Miranda back to the national meet with her teammates. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen so she will go and carry the banner for Arkansas and she’ll do a great job for us."

Walker received an at-large individual bid following her third-place finish at the South Central Regional meet in Waco, Texas, last weekend. She clocked a time of 20:27.9 on her way to earning all-region honors. Over the course of the season, Walker has collected one individual title (Arkansas Invitational), an SEC Runner of the Week award and first team All-SEC honors.

With her at-large selection in the NCAA Championships, Walker will be making her fourth appearance at the national meet. In 2006 and 2007, she was part of the Razorback lineup and the past two seasons have been as an individual participant. Last season, Walker covered the 6K course in a time of 21:27.8, a personal best for the Southlake, Texas, native an NCAA event.

In addition to the crews competing for the team title, there were 38 individual runners selected to participate in each championship race through the automatic qualifier and at-large selection process. All individual qualifiers finished in the top 25 of their respective regions.

Download: 11.15.10 NCAAs.pdf