Written by Aaron Alexander and Madison Edwards<\/p>\n
Sophomore Alicja Minczuk qualified as an individual for the NCAA Division II National Championships in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Dec. 1. Harding as a team failed to qualify after they finished 14th at the Central Region Meet on Nov. 17. Minczuk is Harding\u2019s first individual runner to qualify for the national race since 2012. The last time Harding as a team qualified for the national meet was 2015.<\/p>\n
Minczuk\u00a0earned All-Central Region honors this season, and was one of eight runners in all of Division II to get to compete in the national meet. Men and Women\u2019s Head Cross-County Coach Steve Guymon said Minczuk often has to practice by herself, because her pace is faster than the team as a whole.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt has been fun watching her improve, as she\u2019s taken the role of our number one runner,\u201d Guymon said.<\/p>\n
Guymon describes Minczuk as a determined and hard working runner who is her own toughest critic.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe pushes [the team] to work harder and perform better,\u201d Guymon said. \u201cShe isn\u2019t a vocal leader \u2014 she\u2019s a hard worker, and the team watches her.\u201d<\/p>\n
Minczuk found out over Thanksgiving Break that she had qualified for the national meet, she said the news surprised her, but was ready because of all the practice she has put in all season.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to keep going each day, even when you want to sleep, or do not feel your best,\u201d Minczuk said.<\/p>\n
When she misses a work out Minczuk feels that it gives her opponents an advantage, which is why she sticks to her training.<\/p>\n
Minczuk competed in five races this year and was Harding’s top finisher in each. She never finished below 10th<\/sup> place, finished third in the Great American Conference Championship, and won the Little Rock Invitational on Oct. 13.<\/p>\n Minczuk is the fifth Harding runner in the NCAA era to get a spot as an individual runner at the national meet.\u00a0On Dec. 1 she placed 197th out of 264 runners, her time was 25 minutes, 41.5 seconds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Written by Aaron Alexander and Madison Edwards Sophomore Alicja Minczuk qualified as an individual for the NCAA Division II National Championships in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Dec. 1. Harding as a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15109,"featured_media":12171,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[636,295,602],"class_list":["post-12170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-alicja-minczuk","tag-cross-country","tag-ncaa-division-ii-national-championship"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15109"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}