For North Carolina sophomore Lianne Farber, the 2012 cross country season has been one full of accomplishments.

After earning the first win of her collegiate career at the adidas XC Challenge in September, she has since recorded personal bests in both the 5K and 6K events.

And despite a sub-par performance at the ACC Championships two weeks ago, Farber realized her goal of the season at the NCAA Southeast Regional in Charlotte last Friday.

Her individual fifth-place finish earned her All-Region honors and the opportunity to compete at the NCAA National Championships.

Obviously were thrilled with Liannes finish today, coach Mark VanAlstyne said. Shes worked very hard to get to this point. To bounce back from the adversity of a poor finish at ACCs and qualify for her first finals in cross country I thought was huge.

She did her race plan perfectly and has a fifth-place finish and nationals berth to show for it.

Farbers time of 20:31.6 led the womens team, which was shorthanded without top runners Kylie McCoy and Emma Norman, to a fifth-place finish in a field of 37 teams.

After placing a disappointing sixth out of 11 at the ACC Championships, the mens team continued to struggle by failing to produce any runners in the top 35, finishing the 10k event in 11th place out of 34 teams.

Sophomore Scott Morgan led the men with a time of 31:05.3.

We werent happy with the mens performance. They came in certainly with aspirations to finish higher than 11th. And outside of one person, Scott Morgan, who had maybe his best race of the year, I think everyone else just felt like they were not on today, VanAlstyne said. Our goal is much higher than 11th in the Southeast Region. We want to be the team vying for a spot at nationals and ultimately achieving that.

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Farber posts new personal best en route to an All-Region performance