INDIANAPOLIS -- Bates women's cross country sophomore Leah White has qualified as an individual to compete at the NCAA Championships, being held this Saturday in Terre Haute, Ind. 

White (Ann Arbor, Mich.) qualified on the strength of her performance at the NCAA East Regional Championship, where she took seventh place out of 224 runners with a career-best 6K time of 22:06.73. Seventy individuals, the first seven student-athletes from each region who are not part of a qualifying team, were selected to compete at NCAAs.

While the Bobcats did not qualify as a team this year, breaking a string of five at-large bids in a row, White becomes the first Bates women's cross country runner to qualify as an individual since Katherine Cook '18 in 2017. White already got experience on the national stage as a rookie when she competed with the team at NCAAs. 

She will be joined by men's cross country's Andrew Mottur '25 (Rumford, R.I.), who qualified as an individual by placing ninth in the 8K race at regionals on Saturday.

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology is hosting the championships on Nov. 23 at LaVern Gibson Championship Course. A live web stream of the championships will occur on NCAA.com beginning at 11 a.m. eastern time until the conclusion of the awards ceremony.