The UA cross country team rarely makes appearances in Tucson, but Saturday, senior Tara Chaplin won the NCAA West Regional on her home field, more than making up for the rarity of home meets.

Chaplin led the UA women's squad to a second-place finish at Randolph North Golf Course as the team secured an automatic bid to the NCAA Championships. Chaplin won with a time of 20:40.10 on the 6,000-meter course. Stanford took the overall women's team title, beating UA by 42 points.

UA cross country head coach Dave Murray believes the women's squad would have been closer if senior Beth Hoge had not fallen out of the race.

"Obviously, second place gets us an automatic bid. But Hoge fell out of the race at the 2K mark with a sideache," Murray said. "We would have been closer to Stanford with her. They didn't run much better than us."

Chaplin said she felt the team excelled in Tucson, and the crowd contributed to her success.

"I think it really made a big difference," she said. "Tucson loves the Wildcats. (I got) a little taste of what the basketball team feels."

Murray said he was pleased with the ladies performance, and Chaplin said she is confident in the women's chances next week at the Championships.

"I felt pretty good. I had a steady race," Chaplin said. "I could have kicked it in harder, but I was happy with my race, and we performed well as a team. I am very happy. We came in with the attitude that we can catch everybody in front of us. Hopefully, we can carry it over to nationals and do well there."

The women credit a large portion of their success Saturday to senior Abby Peters, who battled to a 21st-place finish in her first full race of the season. Peters had been injured most of the season, but Saturday helped the team's bid for nationals.

On the men's side, Saturday did not play out as well. The UA men's team placed sixth and will have to wait and see if they earned one of the 13 at-large bids to the nationals the NCAA gives out yearly.

Murray said the team is confident it can earn one of the bids and compete in next week's championships.

"For the men, we would have rather been third than sixth, I feel that our region will get us in though. We'll have to wait and see," Murray said.

UA senior Mike Cramer placed 12th as the first men's finisher in a time of 31:32.90.

"We improved a ton. Everyone put in a huge effort. Everyone needs to be 'on' on the same day," said Cramer.

The NCAA Cross Country Championships are Monday in Greenville, S.C.