Harrison and Jube punch tickets to NCAA Championships

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico ­– Andrea Nelson Harrison and Carrie Jube placed fourth and fifth at the Mountain Region Championships and qualified to compete at the NCAA Championships next weekend.

"I'm so happy to place fourth and I'm even happier that Carrie Jube and I were able to fight togehter through the course," Harrison said. "She really gave me the energy I needed throughout the race to make the right moves and keep fighting."

Led by Harrison’s and Jube’s strong performances, BYU placed third overall as a team with a score of 112.

Harrison and Jube ran with the lead pack the whole race and were in eighth and ninth place near the halfway point. During the second half of the race, the duo moved all the way up to third and fourth before conceding one spot near the end. Harrison and Jube finished the 6K race with times of 21:07.46 and 21:09.98, respectively.

"I felt great about my race," Jube said. "Andrea and I had a race plan to start conservatively and hang with the front pack. I felt like we did exactly what we wanted to. We stuck together and pushed each other the whole race. I'm excitted to be going to nationals with Andrea. It will be extremely beneficial to run with her there and see what we can do together."

Makenna Smith placed 25th in 21:54.10, Jennica Redd came in 28th with a time of 22:04.58 and McKenzie Weir was 50th finishing in 22:28.43.

Harrison is making her second appearance at nationals while Jube will be making her first.

By finishing in the top 25, Harrison, Jube and Smith earned all-region honors.

The Cougars will now await the official NCAA selection announcement of the 2014 NCAA Championship field. The selection show will be released shortly after 1 p.m. MST on NCAA.com. The top two teams in each region qualify for the championships. The top four individual finishers not on one of the qualified teams get berths to compete at the championships.

The championships will take place next Saturday, Nov. 22, in Terre Haute, Indiana.