STILLWATER, Okla. – Ole Miss cross country will look to finish strong on the national stage, as the Rebel men’s team and women’s senior Ryann Helmers will conclude their seasons at the 2022 NCAA Cross Country Championships at Oklahoma State’s Greiner Family OSU Cross Country Course on Saturday morning. Both races will air live and commercial-free on ESPNU beginning at 9 a.m. CT, with the women’s championships 6K scheduled for 9:20 a.m. CT and the men’s championship 10K race for 10:10 a.m. CT.
At last week’s NCAA South Regional, the Ole Miss men snagged an automatic qualifier berth to the national meet, breaking the formchart on a wet and muddy day in Huntsville to qualify for the NCAA Championships for the ninth consecutive season. On the women’s side, Helmers recorded the fourth-best individual regional finish in Rebel women’s history in ninth place, which ended up making her just the second Ole Miss women’s runner to earn an individual berth to nationals.
Women’s Championship 6K Preview • 9:20 a.m. CT
Senior Ryann Helmers is just the second Rebel woman to ever earn an individual spot at the national meet, joining Katie Breathitt in 2012, who finished 62nd overall. In the combined history of both the Ole Miss men’s and women’s programs, Helmers is the sixth Rebel to individually qualify for nationals, joining Breathitt and six Rebel men’s berths: Pablo Sierra (1992, 45th), Bernard Kuria (1997, 67th), Barnabas Kirui (2006, 71st; 2009, 4th; 2010) and Martin Kirui (2011, 131st).
Helmers – a native of Sanderson, Texas – has been the top runner for the Ole Miss women all season long, notching an average finishing spot of 10.2 across her five races this fall. She began the season with an individual win at home in the SEC Preview on Sept. 16 (20:29.2), which earned her SEC Co-Women’s Runner of the Week honors. From there, Helmers was the top finisher for Ole Miss at the stacked Cowboy Jamboree on Sept. 24 (20:55.3) in 25th place, the eighth-place finisher at Virginia’s Panorama Farms XC23 Invite 5K on Oct. 15 (16:53.5) and a Second-Team All-SEC honoree as an eighth place finisher for the Rebel women at the SEC Championships on Oct. 28.
She has been especially fast as of late as well, with a huge 6K best of 19:37.2 at SECs to lead Ole Miss to their seventh straight top-three conference finish, and a…
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