WESTERVILLE – Sophomore Sarah Scarborough has come a long way in her short time as a cross country runner at Otterbein. From not competing at all during her freshman season due to injury, she now finds herself heading to the NCAA Division III Championships.

"It's kind of been shocking throughout the entire season seeing what I can do," Scarborough said. "I did not know I was near capable of going this far. It's really incredible to be able to experience this."

Thanks to her fifth-place finish at the NCAA Division III Great Lakes Regional Championships last Saturday, Scarborough not only earned All-Region status but also a berth in the 2024 NCAA Division III Championships as an at-large qualifier. The Division III Championships are scheduled for Saturday at 11 a.m. at the LaVern Gibson Championship Course in Terre Haute, Ind. Live results will be posted here.

Scarborough posted a time of 21:54 at regionals en route to becoming the Otterbein women's cross country program's first national qualifier since Allison Currey in 2019. Based on the qualifying standards, she knew she had punched her ticket to nationals before she even crossed the finish line.

"I knew I was qualifying for nationals when I was going through the straightaway. Being in that fifth position, I knew I had it. My parents were there at the finishing chute, and we all smiled. It was the best feeling ever," she said. "All the girls that finished before me got together with me, and we were congratulating each other and talking about the race. Everyone in the running community is so supportive of each other. It was nice finishing that race knowing what you just accomplished and then being able to celebrate it with other people from different teams, and seeing your coaches and teammates be there to support you is the best feeling ever."

That moment marked the culmination of an unexpected journey that has taken Scarborough from a small team at Xenia High School to competing as one of the top Division III runners in the country on Saturday.

"I wasn't expecting this at all," she said. "I spent the majority of my freshman year cross training and found that my body strives more off of that, so I found my groove. It's fun to see what I can do and how much I've grown."

Scarborough has been the Cardinals' top finisher in all seven races she's competed in this season. She has six top-seven showings overall, including one win and a pair of runner-up finishes. She credits the support she's received from her coaches and teammates for helping her toward all that success.

"Coming into this season and seeing my potential has been awesome," she said. "I power off of the team's and the coaches' support. All of their belief and trust in me has been powering me throughout the season. We've been such a close-knit group of people, and everyone has been powering off of each other."

Scarborough placed sixth in the 355-woman field in the premier Gold Division race of her final regular-season meet at the Augustana (Ill.) Interregional Invitational on Oct. 19, setting her up for a promising postseason. But she admitted to being super nervous going into the Ohio Athletic Conference Championships meet two weeks later. She fought through those nerves to post a runner-up finish to Wilmington's Faith Duncan, who went on to become the Great Lakes Region champion as well. Scarborough ran a career-best time of 21:24 at the OACs, earning First Team All-OAC status in helping the Cardinals to a third-place finish in the team standings, marking the team's best since 2019.

"It was very rewarding to see not only the team succeed like that but for myself to accomplish something that I never really would've envisioned doing," she said.

That performance boosted Scarborough's confidence going into the regional meet two weeks later where she placed fifth of 270 runners in leading the Cardinals to a 12th-place finish in the 39-team field, marking a five-spot improvement from 2023.

"The course was definitely a lot more challenging than what we had been running," she said. "I ended up staying in third for the majority of the race. I dropped to fifth for the last K, but I still powered through, and it was still an awesome experience."

Next up is Saturday's Division III Championships meet in Terre Haute, and Scarborough is proud to be representing Otterbein on the national stage.

"I feel extremely honored to be able to do this for the team," she said on Tuesday. "It's a surreal experience, and I'm kind of still absorbing all of it."

The Cardinals ran the LaVern Gibson Course during the regular season at the Pre-Nationals meet on Oct. 4. Scarborough finished 29th in the 389-woman field then, posting a time of 22:15. But race conditions will be different this weekend, as the Pre-Nationals meet was held at night.

"It was a really fun environment, but it was kind of hard to navigate at times because of how dark it was," Scarborough said of her prior experience at the LaVern Gibson Course.

She's looking forward to taking on the course in the daylight hours but admits that it still presents challenges.

"There are some rolling hills on the back of the course, and it's a lot of loops within loops," she said. "But having already experienced that and to know what's coming is going to make it a lot easier to make a game plan and evaluate my earlier performance and try to improve on that."

Scarborough is of course aiming for a top-40 finish on Saturday to earn All-American honors but is simply grateful to get this experience no matter the outcome. Her roommate and coaches will be there to support her, and she cites the journey with them as being just as special.

"I'm most looking forward to the experience and putting it all out there," she said. "All of my hard work and all of the training I've been doing throughout the season – all the good days and the bad days – just putting it all out there on the course and giving it my all and seeing what happens."

No matter how Scarborough caps her sophomore season on Saturday, there's no doubt that 2024 has been a standout year, and one she hopes to continue building on for future success.

"It makes me even more excited for next season to see what I can do and see if I can improve," she said. "I'm definitely going to take these experiences with me and strive for more."