SOU, NCU XC Teams Share CCC Award
PORTLAND, Ore. – The Southern Oregon University men’s cross country team and Northwest Christian University women’s cross country team posted top five finishes at last Saturday’s NAIA Cross Country National Championships to share the CCC Verizon Team of the Week award, the conference office announced Monday.
Southern Oregon had three runners finish in the top 65, including Ryan Sorenson, who earned All-America honors with a 22nd-place showing. James Johnstone placed 31st and Matt Battaglia was 65th. Other Raiders included Scott McIntyre (80th), Brett Hornig (81st), Eric Ghelfi (157th), and Colin McRoberts (215th). The field was comprised of 312 competitors. SOU finished third in the team race.
“I thought we ran very, very smart and competed very, very hard,” said SOU coach Grier Gatlin, who is in his second stint as the Raiders’ head coach. “The team and I felt very good about the performance. Anytime you can trophy at the national championships, you have to feel good about it. The team went through a lot of changes this year, and its showing Saturday was a testament to its perseverance.”
Northwest Christian posted the school’s highest team finish (fourth) in any sport since joining the NAIA, as seniors Brittany Petersen and Stephanie Hescock led the way by finishing among the top 30 to achieve All-America honors. Petersen placed 16th in a time of 18:09, while Hescock was 20th in a time of 18:14. Freshman Emily Svendsen-McLean was 52nd, freshman Ally Manley was 60th, and sophomore Ashley Kinney was 83rd. Freshman Heidi Gori placed 156h and junior Sierra Schorer Noll was 161st. More than 320 runners competed.
“We knew that going into this meet the most important thing was to keep everyone healthy,” said NCU coach Heike McNeil. “While you can’t always control that, we knew on Friday that all we had to deal with was a couple of colds – so we told the team that it can be top 10 in the nation if everyone just has a decent race. We also told them that if we had some really great performances, we could be a top five team. And then we pretty much had seven really great performances. Emily, Ashley, and Brittany ran out of their heads, Stephanie was able to recover from her off-season surgery just in time, Ally was able to deal with the soft ground that had given her so much trouble previously, Heidi and Sierra pushed each other to outstanding performances – and we ended up in fourth. There is really not one more thing a coach could have asked from any one of these ladies on the big day.”
Previous Verizon Team of the Week awardees.