Photo Courtesy of Shane Bufano
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What has been a record year for the team has also turned out to be a record year for its star.

At the Northeast Regional meet on Saturday, junior Erik van Ingen became the first Binghamton runner to ever qualify for the NCAA Division I cross country championships. His seventh-place finish out of 243 runners helped the Binghamton University men’s cross country team to a program-best eighth out of 36 teams.

“We’re just thrilled with the fact that he made it,” head coach Annette Acuff said. “It’s a tough task to make it the NCAA championships with the level of competition we have in our region. We’re excited for him and he deserved to get it.”

Van Ingen finished the 10,000-meter course with a time 31:17. He became only the third runner from any AE school to qualify for the NCAA championships. Just two weeks ago, van Ingen captured the America East individual title, leading his team to its first ever conference title.

Syracuse, Iona and Providence all qualified for the national championships as teams. The top four individual finishers outside of the qualifying teams also made the cut. Van Ingen was the second-highest finisher to qualify as an individual.

The NCAA Division I national cross country championship, which is hosted by Indiana State University, will be held on Monday, Nov. 23. The meet, which starts with the men’s race at noon, will be televised live on Versus.

“It was pretty much the No. 1 priority coming into the season,” van Ingen said on qualifying. “It’s so difficult to make it as an individual so I’m really pleased with how I ran.”

Graduate student Chris Gaube finished 38th with a time of 32:36, freshman Jeff Martinez was 67th and juniors Adam Quinn and Casey Quaglia rounded out the top-five for Binghamton with finishes of 71st and 76th, respectively.

Every meet, the Bearcats have been adding accolades to their already record-breaking season.

“I’m amazed by how much this program has developed,” Acuff said. “By how much they have become confident and developed individually; it’s helped us to be as successful as we are, but we had a really healthy year. A lot of things had to fall in to place for us, we had to keep our kids healthy.”

The team won its first ever AE title two weeks ago and, after finishing 15th at the regional meet last season, made a program breakthrough finishing in eighth place, just behind Cornell University.

“Our expectation was to finish in the top-10 in the region,” Acuff said. “We got eighth and we were only 24 points away from Cornell. We wanted to beat Cornell obviously, but it gives us something to shoot for next year.”

“We didn’t have the best day as a collective group,” van Ingen said. “It’s good to know that we could finish a program best, not having our best day.”

The Bearcats women’s team also competed at the Northeast Regional meet, but a depleted and young squad only finished 26th out of 35 teams. Freshman Rachel Miura was 82nd overall in the 6,000-meter course finishing with a time of 24:13. Classmate Lindsay Raulli finished 126th in 24:49.

“This year was a developmental year,” Acuff said on the women’s team. “I was really pleased with how Rachel and Lindsay both ran at regionals considering their lack of experience. This year’s team is completely different than last year’s team, we’re excited about development with individuals, we’re just not as strong as a team.”

Van Ingen’s finish in the top-25 also earned him a spot on the All-Northeast Region team. He became the first male runner from Binghamton to earn All-Northeast honors. The upcoming NCAA championships bring the opportunity for All-American honors. The top-25 American citizens to finish at the meet receive the honors.

Acuff said there are a number of international students who compete for schools at the championship but are not eligible for All-American honors.

“[Erik’s] should be in the top third of the field,” Acuff said. “Top-50 is a realistic goal for him.”

Van Ingen has set his sights high for the meet but understands the challenges.

“The goal is All-American,” he said. “But if it doesn’t happen, that doesn’t mean it was a bad race. To be able to make the meet as an individual makes my chances very realistic. I need to be on and firing on all cylinders to have a shot.”

The rest of the Bearcats travel to the Bronx this weekend for the ECAC/IC4 championships.

“We have a lot of guys who couldn’t compete at the conference meet and regionals,” Acuff said. “This meet is more for those who haven’t had a chance to compete in a while. We have improved a lot in practice with our training and fitness and we’re looking forward to see how those guys have improved from a year ago.

The meet is set to begin Saturday at 11 a.m. at Van Cortlandt Park.