If somebody told Kari Summers and Annie Beecham at the beginning of the season that they would be running at Nationals, the two never would have believed it.

 Following Saturday’s regional race, Summers and Beecham are set to represent Ohio in the National race.

“It’s pretty much the icing on the cake for the season,” Beecham said. “At the beginning of the season, I never would have thought that I would be going to Nationals. Meet after meet, it started to become an idea in the back of my head. It was just really exciting to actually do it.”

Summers led the way for the Bobcats, finishing fifth place overall with a time of 21:16. Beecham finished seventh with a time of 21:23.

“It’s obviously a huge accomplishment,” Summers said. “I couldn’t be happier with it.”

The two juniors’ teammates did not seem to care how they ran following the race. Junior Jenielle Hunt, senior Rachel Beakas, freshmen Hannah Charbel and Kristen Altenburger and redshirt sophomore Abigail Swift ran to the finish line in their 10th place performance, wanting to know how Summers and Beecham did.

“I didn’t realize how much people were behind us with this,” Summers said. “It’s always nice to know that everybody is behind you.”

After the race, Summers and Beecham received phone calls and text messages from teammates who did not go immediately following the race.

“I think that they almost were more excited than we actually were,” Beecham said.

Coach Clay Calkins realizes the importance of the two runners qualifying for Nationals.

“It’s been 10 years since we’ve had any women go to cross country Nationals,” he said. “It’s great for our program, it’s great for recruiting and it’s great for the future.”

Summers and Beecham were almost joined by senior Shamus Eaton of the men’s squad. Eaton placed 21st overall, but because many of the runners ahead of him were on teams that qualified, he was five seconds away from running at Nationals.

“We didn’t have him that close in the preliminary figurings,” Calkins said. “For him to be on the bubble, it’s a great feat for him. The highlight of the meet on the men’s side was Shamus’s performance.”

Eaton was the second MAC runner to cross the finish line. He placed higher than six runners who beat him in the MAC Championship meet.

“It felt great,” Eaton said. “Especially working my way up in the race, you recognize pretty much everyone. They were so many MAC runners that I was beating. It helped me feel a little better about the MAC meet.”

Eaton led the Bobcats to 17th place. He was followed by juniors Todd Holbrook in 89th place and Ridge Robinson in 98th, senior Drew Fattlar in 112th, freshmen Joey Cherico in 134th and Tyler Cantley in 142th and redshirt sophomore Chris Davis in 145th place.