UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – The Nittany Lions cross country/track & field program has released its 2021 schedule for the upcoming cross country and indoor track & field season.
"Penn State Cross Country/Track and Field is ready to compete again! It has been almost 11 months since our last opportunity to wear the Blue and White and we are now less than one week away from wearing it again. The Penn State Administration and Big Ten Conference have worked tirelessly to provide us an opportunity to compete and we all appreciated their efforts. We have some outstanding student-athletes in our program who are ready to take advantage of the opportunity to compete again and our entire coaching staff is excited to see them do so."
The Nittany Lions are slated to host three indoor track & field events during the 2021 indoor campaign and will compete in five indoor track & field meets prior to the Big Ten Indoor Championships in late February.
Penn State opens indoor competition next Saturday, January 16 by hosting the Nittany Lion Opener and will host the Rutgers Scarlet Knights and the Maryland Terrapins.
The Nittany Lions host the second meet of the season the following weekend on January 23 with Penn State Invite.
Hitting the road for the next two team meets, the Nittany Lions travel to Ann Arbor on February 6 and then head to the Big Ten Preview at Spire Institute in Geneva, Ohio.
Rounding out the indoor regular season schedule, the Nittany Lions host the Penn State Tune Up on Feb. 19 before heading to the Big Ten Indoor Championships the following weekend (Feb. 26-27).
At last year's Big Ten Indoor Championships at Spire, the women's program placed third and had five Big Ten individual champions. This included Maddie Nickel (Holmberg) in the pentathlon, Katie Jones (pole vault), Kiara Lester (400m) and Danae Rivers (800m & mile). Rivers became the first student-athlete in Big Ten history to win four consecutive women's 800m Big Ten indoor titles.
On the men's side, Billy McDevitt continued the men's dominance in the 800m race. McDevitt won Penn State's fifth consecutive men's 800m title and the 11th in the last 13 years.
Qualifying student-athletes will then head to the NCAA Indoor Championships in Fayetteville, Arkansas March 12-13. The Nittany Lions qualified four student-athletes (Danae Rivers – Mile, Maddie Nickel (Holmberg) – Pentathlon, Alexa Parks – High Jump, David Lucas – Weight Throw) for last year's NCAA Indoor Championships prior to the cancellation due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
INDOOR TRACK & FIELD SCHEDULE
Jan. 16 – Nittany Lion Opener (University Park, Pa.)
Jan. 23 – Penn State Invite (University Park, Pa.)
Feb. 6 - @ Michigan (Ann Arbor, Mich.)
Feb. 12-13 – Big Ten Preview @ Spire (Geneva, Ohio)
Feb. 19 – Penn State Tune Up (University Park, Pa.)
Feb. 26-27 – Big Ten Indoor Championships (Geneva, Ohio)
March 12-13 – NCAA Indoor Championships (Fayetteville, Ark.)
The 2021 winter schedule also includes an abbreviated cross country season following the Big Ten's postponement of fall sports due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Nittany Lions cross country program will run in just one meet prior to selections for the NCAA Cross Country Championships.
Head coach John Gondak and associate head coach Angela Reckart led the Nittany Lions women's cross country program to their fifth consecutive Top-20 finish at the 2019 NCAA Cross Country Championships. Penn State is one of just seven schools to finish in the Top-20 at each of the last five NCAA Cross Country Championships.
The Penn State women's program has claimed four of the last five NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional titles, including their most recent title in 2019. Gondak was named the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional Coach of the Year for the fourth time in the last five years last season.
Penn State has been a staple at the women's NCAA Cross Country championships, making appearances at 10 of the last 11 championships and making their 23rd overall appearance in 2019.
The men's program is coming off the 2019 season that saw three team wins and Alex Tomasko earn all-region honors for the second-straight season at the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regional.
The men's and women's program both finished in the top-five at the Big Ten Cross Country Championships for the first time since 2010.
Penn State and the Big Ten Conference opponents will compete at the Big Ten Cross Country Championships on January 30 in Shelbyville, Indiana.
Selection criteria for the NCAA Cross Country Championships are listed below the schedule as the COVID-19 pandemic altered 2020-21 competition for schools in cross country.
CROSS COUNTRY SCHEDULE
Jan. 30 – Big Ten Cross Country Championships (Shelbyville, Ind.)
March 15 – NCAA Cross Country Championships (Stillwater, Okla.)
The Division I Men's and Women's Cross Country Committee will use the following criteria to select teams:
- Schools will have a declaration window from March 3 at midnight Eastern time until March 5 at 7:59 p.m. Eastern time to be considered for team selections.
- Conference championship performance holds the most weight.
- After the conference championship, a team will be evaluated on its body of work for all competitions, regardless of the time of year they occurred. (This includes teams that do not have a conference championship.)
- Common opponents and head-to-head competition against Division I opponents only will be used when comparing teams.
Committee members will use the following criteria to select individuals for the championships.
- Schools will have a declaration window from March 3 at midnight Eastern time until March 5 at 7:59 p.m. Eastern time to be considered for individual selections.
- The top individual finisher at each conference championship who is not part of a qualifying team will advance to the NCAA championships (maximum of 32 individuals depending on how many conferences host a conference championship).
- The remaining individual spots will be selected at large by the committee to fill the field to 38. This includes individuals that did not have the opportunity to compete in a conference championship.
The committee will eliminate the designation of A-teams and B-teams. Whoever a team runs on a given day is viewed as an A-team. In a single-day competition, however, only the varsity team would be considered for selection purposes.
The minimum number of competitions to be considered for selections will be one.
With the elimination of the 2020 NCAA regional championships, the committee created a new selection process for teams and individuals advancing directly to the national championships.
The committee reviewed feedback from the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association when developing this revised selection criteria.