Holzapfel places 10th at NCAA Southeast Regional

Earns All-Region status for third straight year

CHARLOTTE, N.C. --- Tusculum College senior Simon Holzapfel capped his distinguished cross country career with a 10th-place finish at the NCAA Division II Southeast Regional Championships, held at McAlpine Creek Park. Holzapfel crossed the line in a time of 31:35.3 over the 10-kilometer course to capture first-team All-Region honors for the third straight year.

Despite his 10th-place finish, Holzapfel will not qualify for the NCAA Division II Championships as fourth-place finisher Pardon Ndhlovu of UNC Pembroke and eighth-place finisher Fidelis Mutiso of Clayton State snagged the two individual qualifying berths to nationals. The remaining top 10 finishers all earned automatic berths to nationals by being members of one of the three qualifying teams - regional champion Queens University of Charlotte, runner-up Columbus State and third-place Mars Hill.

Sophomore Ryan Badertscher (Marion, Ohio) finished in 104th place in the field of 164 runners with a time of 36:13.2, while in the women's 6-kilometer race Pioneer sophomore Jenny Grant (Franklin, Tenn.) took 151st out of 188 entrants with a time of 27:45.8.

Holzapfel (Nuremburg, Germany) won his second consecutive South Atlantic Conference individual championship last month, and is the first Tusculum male runner to be recognized as All-Region. He was victorious in each of the first six races in which he competed this season, and finished his career with 16 wins. Most impressively, Holzapfel closed his career with a streak of 21 consecutive top-10 finishes, a run that spanned three seasons.

Off the course, Holzapfel is a two-time SAC Scholar-Athlete Award winner for men's cross country and has been named to the ESPN Academic All-America team in each of the last two years, including the first team in 2009-10.

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