Cross Country

Sporting Alert – Top-ranked Colorado women and Northern Arizona men captured the respective team titles at the 2016 NCAA Mountain Region Championships, hosted by the Utah State University in Logan, UT, on Friday, Nov. 11.

Colorado Women Dominate – NCAA Mountain Region Championships Women’s Results

On the women’s side, Colorado placed all five scorers in the top 10 on its way to tallying a total score of just 35 points to easily beat reigning NCAA national champion and No. 6 New Mexico which tallied 109 points for second place.

The top two finishers earned the automatic qualifying spots for next weekend’s NCAA National Championship in Terre Haute, Ind.

Air Force, which placed two finishers in the top four, ended third with 111 points, while Utah was fourth (136) and BYU (146) round out the top five.

Colorado will be one of the leading contenders for the women’s team title at the NCAA National Championships and the Buffs used Friday’s Mountain Region Championships as a dress rehearsal.

Sophomore pacer Makena Morley, who finished four in the women’s 6,000-metres in 20:19.90, led a solid Colorado pack, which ran together and stayed within seconds of each other.

Junior Kaitlyn Benner was sixth (20:20.30), senior Erin Clark (20:20.70) and sophomore Mackenzie Caldwell (20:21.00) were seventh and eighth, respectively. Freshman Tabor Scholl completed the scorers with a 10th place finish with a time of 20:26.20.

“The strategy was to run near the top group and to just advance,” head coach Mark Wetmore.

“We didn’t talk to them about staying together, but they definitely were waiting and just letting the race unfold, being business-like.”

Asked if he thinks such a dominant performance at the Mountain Region Championships prepared his team for next week’s nationals, Wetmore said: “I don’t know if this prepares them.

“It could make them complacent, it could make them arrogant. I hope we can talk them down from this, get back to work and make them realize that there’s a lot of good teams left in the country.”

In the individual result, senior Alice Wright of New Mexico won the 6k in a time of 19:59.90, with Winny Koech of UTEP (20:17.10) second, Gillespie Carina of Air Force (20:17.80) and team-mate Jaci Smith (20:19.90) finishing third and fourth, respectively.

MEN’S REPORT – NCAA Mountain Region Championships Men’s Results

Northern Arizona won the men’s team title at the 2016 NCAA Mountain Region Championships with 60 points. The Lumberjacks were landing third third regional title in five seasons.

Colorado took second with 76 points and BYU rounding out the top three with 79 points.

NAU’s Futsum Zienasellassie was the 10k individual race winner with a time of 30:54.10.

His team-mates Cory Glines (30:59.90) and Tyler Day (31:00.90) were sixth and seventh overall, with the other two scorers, Matthew Baxter (31:19.70) and Nathan Weitz (31:23.70) getting home at 22nd and 24th, respectively.

Overall in the 10K, UTEP’s Jonah Koech was second (30:58.60) and BYU’s Nicolas Montanez was fourth (30:59.50).

Northern Arizona and Colorado secured the two automatic bids for the national championships on the men’s side.

IOWA CITY, Iowa, Sporting Alert – Pre-championship favourite Oklahoma State secured its sixth consecutive NCAA Midwest Regional men’s cross country title in Iowa on Friday.

The Cowboys placed all five of their scorers inside the top 23 on the Ashton Cross Country Course to finished with a team score of 64 points en route to their 14th title overall since 1997.

Tulsa, led by the individual men’s 10,000-metre champion, Luke Traynor, ran impressively for second place with 89 points, while Illinois finished third with a score of 113 points.

The top five was completed by Iowa State with 120 points and Bradley, with 135 points.

Oklahoma State and Tulsa secured the two automatic berth from the Midwest Regional for the NCAA National Championships on Nov. 19, in Indiana.

Senior Joshua Thompson paced Oklahoma State with a second place finish in the 10k, crossing the finishing line in 30:18.8.

Hassan Abdi (30:23.5) was fourth, Sylvester Barus (30:42.7) took 15th, Christian Liddell (30:47.9) was 20th and Anthoney Armstrong (30:51.4) grabbed 23rd.

“We’re starting to come together a little bit,” Smith said. “Josh back to running where we expect him to be and Sylvester is making great progress to get to where he was at the beginning of the year.”

Senior Traynor of Tulsa found an extra gear in the closing metres of the race to outpace Thompson and win the Midwest Regional individual 10k honour with a time of 30:18.5.

Traynor was well supported by Benjamin Preisner (30:35.0), Henry Pearce (30:35.9) and Adam Roderique (30:37.0) in 10th, 11th and 12th. Jay Ort completed Tulsa scorers in 55th with a time of 31:25.1.

Overall, Joel Reichow of South Dakota State (30:21.8) for third place, Illinois’ Dylan Lafond (30:27.1) in fifth, Dylan Blankenbaker of Oklahoma (30:27.3) in sixth, Drake’s Reed Fischer (30:29.8), seventh, Thomas Pollard of Iowa State (30:31.0), eighth and Michael Ward (30:33.7), ninth, were all among the top 10 finishers.

NCAA Midwest Regional
Top 10 Final Standings

1 Oklahoma State 64
2 Tulsa 89
3 Illinois 113
4 Iowa State 120
5 Bradley 135
6 South Dakota St. 154
7 Minnesota 205
8 Kansas 233
9 Oklahoma 283
10 Missouri 333

NCAA Midwest Regional Men’s 10k Top 15

1 Luke Traynor SR Tulsa 30:18.5
2 Joshua Thompson SR Oklahoma State 30:18.8
3 Joel Reichow SR South Dakota St. 30:21.8
4 Hassan Abdi JR Oklahoma State 30:23.5
6 Dylan Blankenbaker SR Oklahoma 30:27.3
7 Reed Fischer SR Drake 30:29.8
8 Thomas Pollard FR Iowa State 30:31.0
9 Michael Ward JR Bradley 30:33.7
10 Benjamin Preisner JR Tulsa 30:35.0
11 Henry Pearce JR Tulsa 30:35.9
12 Adam Roderique JR Tulsa 30:37.0
13 Patrick Campbell SR Bradley 30:39.5
14 Obsa Ali JR Minnesota 30:42.1
15 Sylvester Barus JR Oklahoma State 30:42.7

IOWA CITY, Iowa, Sporting Alert – Missouri upset No. 12 and No. 17 Oklahoma State to win the NCAA Midwest Regional women’s crown on the Ashton Cross Country Course on Friday.

The Tigers are among that received votes in the latest rankings, but they were not one of the picks to win the Midwest Regional team title in Iowa City.

However, the underdogs, led by individual champion Karissa Schweizer, ran a well-controlled race to top the pre-championship leading programs and landed the overall crown with 83 points.

Defending Midwest Regional champion Oklahoma State grabbed the other automatic team berth after the Cowgirls raced back in the last half of the race to score 89 points for second place.

Big 12 Championships champion Iowa State, which is ranked 12th in the country, had to settle for third with 90 points, despite looking like the team to beat in the early goings.

The top five was completed by Minnesota (131) and early leader Kansas (154).

The team title for Missouri was well set up by Junior pacer Schweizer, who fended off the challenge of fellow All-American Sharon Lokedi of Kansas to win the women’s individual race.

Schweizer outsprinted Lokedi in the closing metres to win the women’s 6,000-metres with a time of 19:54.4.

She led home team-mates Jamie Kempfer (20:17.9) in 5th, Nicole Mello (20:44.3) in 20th, Teylar Adelsberger (20:45.7) in 21st and Jordyn Kleve (21:08.5) in 36th.

Senior Kaela Edwards led Oklahoma State with a sixth-place finish with a time of 20:23.0. Freshman Michelle Magnani ran 20:32.7 for 13th place, while junior Aurora Dybedokken also finished in the top 20 after taking 14th with a performance of 20:36.9.

Individually, sophomore Lokedi of Kansas was second to Schweizer in 20:00.7, Hope Schmelzle of Northern Illinois finished third in 20:16.9 and fourth went to Aubrey Roberts of Northwestern in 20:17.1.

NCAA Midwest Regional Women’s Team Score
Top 10 Scores

1 Missouri 83
2 Oklahoma State 89
3 Iowa State 90
4 Minnesota 131
5 Kansas 154
6 Tulsa 190
7 Oklahoma 228
8 Northwestern 264
9 Northern Illinois 267
10 Northern Iowa 333

Sporting Alert – Live results, updates and information ahead of the 2016 NCAA Mountain Region Championships, hosted by the Utah State University in Logan, UT, on Friday, Nov. 11.

The organisers have confirmed that admission to enter this course is FREE. Watch the 2016 NCAA Mountain Region Championships Live | Women 6k Run CC | Women 6k Run CC Score | Men 10k Run CC | Men 10k Run CC Score

• Men’s Entries
• Women’s Entires
• Box Assignments

First out on the Steve & Dona Reeder Cross Country Course on Friday will be the women and they will race over 6,000-metres with the starting time for this event set for 11:00am Mountain Time (MT) – 1:00pm ET.

The men will race over 10,000-metres and hour later and live results will be available.

During each event, there will also be live team scores, which will be confirmed at the conclusion of the respective races.

The top two teams from the 2016 NCAA Mountain Region Championships will join another 16 squads across the eight other regional meets as automatic qualifiers for the Nov. 19 NCAA National Championships.

LOBO WOMEN HUNT NATIONAL SLOT

Defending national women’s champion, the University of New Mexico will look to win one of the auto slots at the nationals, which will take place at the LaVern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course in Terre Haute, Indiana.

The No. 6 ranked Lobo women are hunting a ninth successive berth at the national championships, but could find the competition a lot tougher than last year.

Lobo head coach Joe Franklin had the luxury of having his runners take their foot off the gas last year and still finished second, but a little more energy might be required to fend off No. 1 Colorado, No. 18 BYU, No. 20 Utah and the No. 29 Air Force this year.

Franklin would be delighted to come away with the team championship, but remains fixed that the NCAA Mountain Region Championships is only a trial for the big stage.

“This race is the trial to make it to the final,” Franklin said on the Lobo website. “Whether you win this race or not is, at some level, irrelevant.

“Last year, we were second [at regionals] to Colorado by a point and then went to the national championships and got them by quite a few.”

EXCITING MEN’S RACE EXPECTED

The 2016 NCAA Mountain Region Championships field is also very deep on the men’s side, as the top three teams in the country will lock horns.

No. 1 Northern Arizona will start as the favourite for the male title, but is expected to face very strong competitions from No. 2 Colorado and No. 3 BYU who are all capable of winning on their day.

“I want our men to run the style of race that allows them to give their best effort while not worrying too much about what’s going on around them,” said Lumberjacks Director of Cross Country Eric Heins.

“This will be their first 10K of the season, so if they can run hard the last 2K—knowing they’ll face the same task going into nationals next weekend—I think it’s going to help us.”

Besides the top three, No. 15 UTEP, No. 19 Colorado State and No. 24 Southern Utah will also lineup on the Steve & Dona Reeder Cross Country Course on Friday.

IOWA CITY, Iowa, Sporting Alert – Oklahoma State men’s cross country team will look to capture yet another NCAA Midwest Regional crown when it lines up on the Ashton Cross Country Course on Friday.

How To Watch NCAA Midwest Regional Live Stream: Live Results | Women’s Live Stream | Men’s Live Stream

Oklahoma State swept the NCAA Midwest Regional men’s and women’s team titles last year.

The women’s 6,000-meters begins at 12:00pm ET with the men’s 10,000-meters going off at 1:00pm.

The Cowboys head into Iowa City for the Midwest Regional championship with a dominating record in recent years, having won the last five titles in a row and 13 titles overall since 1997.

Dave Smith’s team, which is yet to taste defeat this season from its limited schedule, is coming off a confident performance at the end of last month when it captured a ninth successive Big 12 title to remain top of the Midwest Regional rankings.

The Cowboys, who is ranked No. 9 nationally, are expected to win a berth to the NCAA National Championships in Terre Haute, Indiana, but want to achieve their goal with the smallest of efforts.

“We want to get through to the National Championship,” OSU head coach Smith said.

“We want to get to the National Championship feeling like we’ve got some running left in our legs, but at the same time, we want to win the region.

“We’re undefeated so far this year, we want to keep that going. It’s another title that we want to win.”

Oklahoma State will suit up against teams such as Iowa, Tulsa, Oklahoma and Kansas, but it’s Iowa State coach Smith is fearing the most.

After losing both his shoes and recovering to finish third overall at the Big 12 championships, junior Hassan Abdi is ready for a much smoother race for the Pokes on Friday and he is expected to be supported by Luis Martinez, Josh Thompson, Anthoney Armstrong and Christian Liddell.

“Iowa State is a potential top-10 team at the National Championship. They’re a team that took it to us at Big 12s,” he said.

“It was nip and tuck down that last 600 meters – I wasn’t sure if we were going to win or not. I imagine it will be very similar.”

Smith has warned his athletes against feeling over confident.

“What I’ve been stressing to the guys is that we cannot take this lightly,” the veteran coach revealed. “We can’t assume we’re going to Nationals, which is sometimes the assumption.

“Last year, in the middle of the race we realized we might have been in some trouble, so I think we hit the panic button and guys ran a lot harder than what we would have liked.

“We ended up winning the region and we made it through, but we spent a lot of our capital for the National Championship on that race.”

On the other women’s side, Big 12 champions Iowa State and defending champion Oklahoma State will go head-to-head again.

The No. 17 Cowgirls were beaten by the No. 12 Cyclones at the Big 12 Cross Country Championships, but are hoping to return the favour on Friday.

How Qualify For NCAA National Championship

The top-two teams from the NCAA Midwest Regional will join 16 others from the other eight regions as automatic qualifiers for the NCAA Championships on Nov. 19 in Terre Haute, Indiana at the Lavern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course.

In additional, the selectors will also hand out 13 at-large bids to the meet

Sporting Alert – It’s championship weekend for Cross Country on Saturday and all three NCAA divisions will have live streaming coverage from their respective categories.

The women will go to battle first, with their race scheduled to begin at 11:00 a.m. ET. This will be followed by the men at 12:15 p.m. ET. Live streaming coverage and links to follow the live team scores and updated race results are here: Live Results | Live Video Streaming

Grand Valley State and Adams State are set to lock horns in the race for both the men’s and women’s NCAA Division II Cross Country National Championships in Joplin, Missouri.

Grand Valley State and Adams State tracked into this weekend’s head-to-head battle sharing the top spots in the rankings on the men’s side and both schools are confident about their chances of coming out on top.

After winning the NCAA DII Midwest Regional title on Nov. 7 to secure its third successive victory, the Laker men will look to finish off the season on a high with the national crown.

Co-favorites Adams State is a the three-time defending champion and they too are coming off title winning performances at the South Central Regionals and the RMAC Championships.

The Grizzlies, who have won its last three team titles during the 2015 season and five overall from six meetings leading up to these championships, have landed six of the past seven NCAA Division II Cross Country National Championships on the men’s side.

It might be a good idea to keep a close eye on the other top five sides in the rankings – Alaska Anchorage, Chico State and Colorado Mines.

On the women’s side, No. 1 Grand Valley State, like their male counterparts, have been storming through the 2015 season and come Saturday morning the three-time defending champions will go in search of a fourth title in a row.

After breaking Adams State’s strong hold on the women’s crown in 2010, Grand Valley State has won four of the last five titles and should be a good bet for a sixth come Saturday.

No. 3 Hillsdale will be a strong threat to the top two teams, having gone 2-2 on head-to-head against Grand Valley State this year, while No. 4 Chico State and former champions No. 5 Western State will also look to break up the front runners.

NCAA DIII CROSS COUNTRY NATIONALS

The race for the NCAA Division III Cross Country National Championships will also go off this weekend in Winneconne, Wis. Live Results | Live Video Streaming

Three-time defending champion Johns Hopkins is the favourite to lift the women’s team title this weekend, while the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire is the favourite to win the men’s crown.

Defending men’s champion North Central (Ill.) comes into this weekend’s battle ranked No. 3, but this team is always one to watch out for, having won three of the past four team titles.

NAIA CROSS COUNTRY NATIONALS

The NAIA Men’s and Women’s Cross Country National Championships will also go off this weekend and you can follow live streaming coverage of the event.

The event switches from Lawrence, Kan, to the McAlpine Creek Park in Charlotte, N.C. and you can
WATCH LIVE on NAIA Network.

Two-time defending champion Oklahoma City goes for a third men’s title, but will need to hold off No. 2 Southern Oregon and No. 3 Lewis-Clark State (Idaho).

On the women’s side, Northwest Christian (Ore) comes in as the favourite for the crown, with Biola (Calif.), Aquinas (Mich.) and Taylor (Ind.) expected to challenge them.

Defending national champion British Columbia is expected to be in the mix as well.