VANCOUVER, Wash. – Concordia sophomore Alice Taylor became the first female All-American cross country runner in school history with a 13th-place individual finish at the 2009 NAIA National Championships held at Fort Vancouver Historical Site today.
Taylor finished the 5,000-meter course with a time of 18 minutes, 27 seconds.
“Alice finished a great year with a very good race," CU head coach Randy Dalzell said. "I was afraid she was a little too far back the first half of the race, but she ran a very strong last 2,000 to move up quite a bit. She has shown tremendous development this sophomore season and I am excited to see her next two seasons.”
The Cavaliers No. 2, 3 and 4 runners all finished within strides of each other to push CU into a 12th-place result in the team standings with a score of 344 points. The Cavaliers, who came in ranked No. 22 in the final NAIA poll, recorded the second highest team finish among Cascade Collegiate Conference schools.
“It has been really rewarding working with this group of ladies because they just refused to toss in the towel on this season early on when we faced a lot of challenges," Dalzell said. "They have had a great attitude and a tremendous team spirit. They pulled off the biggest race of the year by finishing 10 places higher than they were rated coming in, especially considering all the people we lost for the season early on. The development in both running ability as well as competitive desire has been inspiring to me as a coach and that has truly made it a joy to work with them this year."
College of Idaho, the CCC champs earlier this month, finished seventh overall. The team finish represented an all-time best performance from the women’s squad, with a previous best result set last year when the Cavaliers placed 21st overall.
Junia Limage crossed the line in 79th with a 19:42, Lauren Moran in 82nd with a 19:43 and Samantha Robert in 87th with a 19:46. As for team scoring, Taylor was credited with a ninth-place result while Limage, Moran and Robert went 54, 57 and 59. Maggie Pesanti finished as the team’s fifth runner after finishing in the 247th overall position, or 165th in the team scoring.
Rounding out the squad were Savanah Walruff and Kelsie Lincoln.
Led by Stephanie Helm’s 20th-place finish in 18:27, The College of Idaho posted a score of 246 points for seventh place, just ahead of the University of British Columbia (269) and immediately behind top-rated Azusa Pacific (199). Molli Lee-Painter finished 42nd, leading a group of three ‘Yotes that crossed the line within a 20-second span.
Eastern Oregon’s Karlee Coffey was the overall top finisher from the Cascade Conference, crossing the line in 12th at 18:27, the identical time for CU’s Taylor. Also competing individually were Seena Frantz from Southern Oregon (23rd, 18:47), and Stephanie Hescock from Northwest Christian (147th, 20:13).
Cal State-San Marcos won the team title with 137 points, edging Biola (Calif.) who finished in second with 140. The Cougars posted three runners in the top 30 including seventh-place finisher Dallon Williams (18:20). The team title is the first national championship in the 10-year history of the school.
Justyna Mudy of Shorter College (Ga.) won the individual championship with a time of 17:30, a 21-second victory over APU’s Jacky Kipwambok. The 2009 NAIA Women's Cross Country Coach of the Year honors went to Steve Scott of Cal State-San Marcos.
Cavalier Men Finish 12th at NAIA Championships
VANCOUVER, Wash.–Led by freshman Marcus Nelson, Concordia nearly halved their ranking in the final poll of the season by finishing in 13th place at the 2009 NAIA Cross Country Championship held today at Fort Vancouver Historical Site in Vancouver, Wash. today.
Nelson toured the 8,000-meter course in 26 minutes, 14 second to finish 62nd overall, and 49th among the team counters to help the Cavaliers to a team score of 371 points. Concordia came into the meet ranked No. 24 in the country.
Nelson led a pack of four Cavaliers that finished in under 27 minutes as Charles Cummings (65th, 52nd, 26:16), Martin Romero-Clark (64th, 26:24) and Cordero Cisneros (104th, 80th, 26:34) all finished within 20 second of each other. Jessy Brown concluded the course as the team’s fifth scorer after crossing in 27:05.
Also competing for the Cavs were Dylan Zitzer and Zach Ginn. Zitzer finished just behind Brown with a 27:19 while Ginn crossed in 27:53.
The 12th-place result for the men was the second-best finish by a CU team, nearly matching the ninth-place performance from a year ago.
"Marcus had an outstanding race for a freshman," Dalzell said. "The rest of the guys ran pretty solid as a group and that made our team score a lot better than we thought we had done. Finishing 13th when we were rated 24th showed that we have a pretty good group, and even though Martin was off his 'A' game today and wasn’t able to duplicate his great conference meet, he still helped move these guys up the list quite a bit from where people had us slated to finish. There is a good young group returning from this team and they gained valuable national race experience today.”
Southern Oregon, who entered the meet as the No. 1 team in the coaches’ poll, earned a score of 188 to finish third overall defending champion Malone University (44) and Concordia University of Nebraska (166). SOU’s David Laney was the top CCC finisher, crossing the line in seventh place out of 323 competitors with a time of 25:22. Dennis McCaffrey also finished in the top 30 to earn All-American status, finishing in 26th place with a 25:51.
The College of Idaho men concluded their season with a program-best 10th-place result with 357 points. The Coyotes were paced by Greg Montgomery who ran a time of 25:49, good for 25th place. Eastern Oregon placed two runners in the top 30 – DJ Flores (14th) and Forest Lumpry (28th) – and finished 12th overall as a team (363 points), giving the CCC four teams among the top 13.
Individual competitors included Brian Rakestraw from Evergreen State (81st, 26:24), Korey Humberston of Oregon Tech (97th, 26:32), and Karim Shakalia of Warner Pacific who finished at 148th in 26:55.
Silas Kisorio from Oklahoma Christian was the individual champion, winning the 8k race in 24.23. The 2009 NAIA Men's Cross Country Coach of the Year honors went to Jack Hazen of Malone College.
“We finished as the sixth best combined program in the nation today and that was a great accomplishment for both the men and women," Dalzell said. "I am extremely proud of the development assistant coach Jason Mueller and I have seen in these groups and we are really excited about the upcoming track seasons as well as next year.”