NAIA XC Championships on Tap this Saturday
KENOSHA, Wis. -- Five Cascade Collegiate Conference cross country programs make their runs at a national title Saturday when the NAIA Championships are staged here at the signature Dr. Wayne E. Dannehl Cross Country Course located about 40 miles south of Milwaukee.
On the men's side, CCC champion and fourth-ranked Southern Oregon enters the 53rd annual event as one of the pre-meet favorites. The Raiders, under the direction of first-year head coach Brent Ericksen, easily won the Cascade Collegiate Conference championship Nov. 8 in Seattle and have yet to lose to an NAIA team in five meets this season. Concordia, with a high-performing trio up front, is ranked No. 13 and harbors top 10 aspirations. College of Idaho, ranked No. 15, hopes to bounce back from a subpar performance at the CCC Championships, where the Yotes finished third on a course that endured heavy rains in the week leading up to the league meet.
On the women's side, CCC champion and 10th-ranked College of Idaho, which captured titles in its last two competitions, and 21st-ranked Concordia, which won three team titles during the 2008 season, will carry the CCC banner in the 29th annual race.
In addition to the five Cascade Collegiate Conference teams entered in the two races, the CCC will be represented by five individuals on the women's side and five on the men's side. Individuals earning at-large spots in the women’s race include Marcella Bosch (Eastern Oregon), Christine Eckstein (Eastern Oregon), Lindsey Wagner (Northwest), Rachel Novak (Oregon Tech) and Annie Mullen (Evergreen). Individuals representing the CCC in the men's race include Korey Humberston (Oregon Tech), Cam Starner (Eastern Oregon), Zach Heath (Eastern Oregon), Brian Rakestraw (Evergreen) and Jonathan Graves (Warner Pacific).
The women's 5K race, featuring 32 teams and 112 individual qualifiers, is slated for a 10:30 a.m. CST start. The men's 8K, featuring 32 teams and 111 individual qualifiers, follows at 11:45 a.m. CST.
On paper, it is Southern Oregon’s men’s team, ranked in the nation's top 10 virtually all season, which carries the league's highest hopes for a national crown. In addition to winning the league title, the Raiders won the Sundodger and Oregon State invitationals and finished second at the Mike Hodges Invitational. In five meets this season, the average separation between the Raiders’ first and fifth finishers was an impressive 12.2 positions.
"Our goal is to continue to race as a team," says SOU’s Ericksen, who took over the SOU program in August after previously serving as associate head coach at Texas A&M Corpus Christi. "If we do that -- if we keep our time differential between No. 1 and No. 7 small, and even moreso between our first and fifth runners -- then I think we can be successful. To place high at nationals, you need some low numbers up front.”
At the CCC meet in Seattle, Southern Oregon was successful in bunching its top five on the wet, soggy Lincoln Park course, with the Raiders’ first five finishers placing in the top 13. SOU totaled 38 points to outdistance runner-up Concordia, which totaled 64 points. Leading the way for SOU were Cameron Kreuz (second), Anthony Monteleone (fourth), Joe Rath (ninth), David Laney (11th), and Ryan Ghelfi (13th).
Kreuz, a senior from Portland’s Lincoln High, led the Raiders in four of their five meets this season, including an individual title at the Oregon State Beaver Classic Oct. 25.
"Striking the right balance is critical in this race," says Ericksen of the men’s field, which will include more than 330 runners. "It is a huge competition from a participant standpoint, so not getting trapped in the back or going crazy in the first 1,000 meters of the race is very important. Having previously coached at Marquette and the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, I have been on the course more times than I can count. My assistant coach, Dan Chelstrom, is from the Midwest, so both of us know the course by heart. If that helps, we'll have to wait and see. But we're not the ones having to race it!"
Concordia coach Randy Dalzell, who saw his men's and women's teams earn at-large berths to the national championships, believes his squads can realistically post top-15 finishes, perhaps higher for the men if things fall right.
"Our expectation is to not get too excited, but just to go run the races we have talked about," says Dalzell, whose men's and women's teams won the Lewis & Clark, Northwest Christian and CCC Preview meets this season. “We want to stay controlled and confident as the races develop. Both of our teams are looking to peak at the national meet, and I think we can do that. The women have had one runner, Alice Taylor, who has not been at full strength for the last month because of a calf injury that just won't heal. If she were at full strength, I'd say things were perfect for both groups.”
The Cavalier men will be led by CCC individual champion Eric Burck, who won the Lewis & Clark Invitational in early September and finished second at the Charles Bowles Invitational in Salem in early October. Charles Cummings and Martin Romero-Clark, both of whom finished in the top five at the CCC Championships, join Burck as legitimate candidates to attain All-America status, which requires a top 30 placing. The CU women’s team is led by Linsie Michels, Andria Scheese, Lauren Moran and Samantha Robert.
Dalzell, now in his fourth year at Concordia, has prepped his teams all season for the hilly Kenosha course.
"We have been training for the hills on this course all year, so we are actually looking forward to the challenges this particular race presents," says Dalzell. "Although you never want to get buried at the start of a big race, you also don't want to go out way too fast and pay for it on this type of course. The weather can sometimes be a factor, but it is usually not so extreme that it really changes anything you would do as far as strategy."
Pat McCurry, the fifth-year College of Idaho coach, hopes his women's team can continue the success it has enjoyed the past month, when it captured titles in consecutive meets at the Lewis-Clark State Invitational and the CCC Championships.
"Our women's team has been racing very well in the last few weeks," says McCurry, the CCC women's Coach of the Year. "We started the year as a great team and then had two of our best girls go down with injuries, and we have been battling back all season. Thanks to some very inexperienced girls really stepping up, we are finally back near that level. That lack of experience is the only real detractor on this team. Three of our top seven did not run cross country in high school and are only in their second seasons as collegians.”
The Yotes will be paced by sophomore Stephanie Helm, a six-time CCC Runner of the Week who claimed her second consecutive conference title with an 11-second victory in the league championship meet. Maggie Miller, Tegan Troutner and Stephanie Sparks also registered top 10 performances at the league championships.
The C of I men’s team is led by All-CCC performers Paul Sartin and Kiprotich Langat, both of whom are coming off top 10 finishes at the CCC Championships, and Zeke Wilson, who was the Yotes’ top finisher in three of six meets in 2008.
The highest national finish by a CCC men’s team was a runner-up showing by Eastern Oregon in 2002; the highest finish by a CCC women’s program was a first-place showing by Northwest University, also in 2002.