Women's Cross Country | 11/13/2016 12:33:00 PM

ROCHESTER, NY – Senior Emma Jones (Rochester, NY/Rush-Henrietta) of the RIT women's cross country team, will represent the university at the 2016 NCAA Division III Women's Cross Country Championship on Saturday, Nov. 19. The championship race will begin at 11 a.m. at E.P. "Tom" Sawyer State Park in Louisville, Kentucky.
 
Jones, who will be making her third straight appearance at the NCAA Championship, qualified after finishing eighth overall out of 303 runners in a time of 21:10.5 at the 2016 NCAA Atlantic Region Championship hosted by Rowan University on Saturday, Nov. 12.
 
In 2014, Jones placed 159th at the NCAA Championship and last year, earned an 81st place finish, best ever for a RIT runner at the national meet.
 
This season, Jones has won two races, the season-opening Cardinal Early Season Invitational hosted by St. John Fisher on Sept. 2 and the Mike Woods Invitational, hosted by SUNY Geneseo on Oct. 1. She also finished third at the Liberty League Championship on Oct. 29 and broke her own school record over 6,000-meters on two occasions. Her top time this season over 6,000-meters is 21:09.8, set at the Rowan University Border Battle on Oct. 15.
 
Jones has enjoyed a tremendous career at RIT, earning All-Liberty League first team and All-NCAA Atlantic Region accolades in each of her four seasons at RIT (2013-16). She is a 12-time RIT Athlete of the Week.

Thirty-two teams will participate in the women's championship. The top two teams automatically qualified from each of the eight NCAA Regional Championships, for a total of 16 teams. Sixteen additional teams were selected at-large. Fifty-six individuals, the first seven student-athletes from each region who are not a part of a qualifying team, were selected to participate in each championship. Jones was the second individual qualifier from the Atlantic Region.