A year ago, the University of Maine-Farmington women’s cross country team won its NAIA regional championship but missed out on a trip to the national meet on a technicality.

The winner didn’t receive a bid, because not enough teams competed in the regional for the national meet directors to extend such an invitation to the winner.

This year, the Beavers made up for that disappointment.

The UMF women scored a meet-low 71 points on Saturday to top nine other teams in its regional meet and earned that elusive bid.

The NAIA national championship meet is set for Nov. 17 in Kenosha, Wis.

“Our women have been having fun and running hard all season and I am sure they will doing more of the same in Wisconsin,” coach Arvid Cullenberg said.

The Beavers were led by junior academic All-American Kate McGuire, a Brewer High graduate, who won the regional title with a time of 19 minutes, 23 seconds over the 3.1-mile course.

Cullenberg expects McGuire to excel at the national meet, as she narrowly missed out on team trips both last year and in 1999, when the Beavers finished second in their regional meet.

“Kate has seen this chance slip away in the last two years. Her drive to win is unmatched and hopefully she can summon another lifetime personal record at nationals,” Cullenberg said.

McGuire was one of two Beavers to compete as an individual in last season’s national championship meet, along with Corrie Pietras.

McGuire finished 108th in the meet. Pietras was 43rd.

Rounding out the top seven for UMF in Saturday’s meet were: Holly Chapdelaine (4th, 20:04), Megan Roy (16th, 22:40), Jessica Ellingwood (17th, 22:42), Maryella Collins (35th, 23:55), Tracy Demuth (41st, 25:18), and Kim Sweeney (44th, 25:51).

The UMF women have earned Maine Athletic Conference titles in each of their four years of existence.

Cullenberg said his team’s tactics paid off in their qualifying effort.

“All of our women ran incredibly smart races,” Cullenberg said. “This course had a couple of strategically placed hills. We negotiated them extremely well, not going out too fast, gaining places on other teams as the race progressed.”

UMF freshman Brett Almasi earned a berth in the national meet as an individual based on his seventh-place showing in the regional meet. He will be the first UMF male to compete in the national meet.

UMF soccer teams in Regionals

The Maine Athletic Conference champion men’s and women’s soccer teams from the University of Maine-Farmington are preparing for this week’s NAIA Region X Tournaments.

Coach Bob Leib’s men are playing host to the regional, which begins Friday. The third-seeded Beavers (14-3) take on No. 2 Felician College of New Jersey in Friday’s 1 p.m. first-round game.

Top-seeded Green Mountain (Vt.) and No. 4 Notre Dame (N.H.) meet in the 11 a.m. contest.

The winners square off in Saturday’s noon title game for the right to compete in the nationals.

On the women’s side, UM-Farmington departed Wednesday for the Region X tourney in Philadelphia. Coach Leib’s 16-3 Beavers are the No. 2 seed and meet No. 3 host Holy Family Friday at 2 p.m.

Top-seeded Green Mountain and No. 4 Felician play Friday at 11 am.

Saturday’s championship game is scheduled for noon.

The UMF men’s team has a handful of eastern Maine standouts, including Jeff Meinhart of Hampden, Miles Levy of Bangor, Garrett Vainio of Abbot, Justin Groshon of Hampden, and Farmington’s Ryan Hersey and Brian Mawhinney.

The women’s squad boasts Dawn Robertson of Penobscot, Allison Ridley and Addie Price of Camden, Megan Woodcock and Erica Bowen of Farmington, Sarah Wishart of Clinton, Julia Malek and Jen Ireland of Norridgewock, and Stephanie Hiller of Thomaston.