All-American junior
Taryn O'Neill positioned herself in the front of the pack early with the remaining blue and gold jerseys not too far behind; three 2K loops flew by, with the women rounding the final stretch approximately 20 minutes after the start of the race.
O'Neill strategically set herself into second place behind Nevada freshman Tierney Wolfgram into the final seconds of the race, but O'Neills final kick was far too powerful as she pushed past Wolfgram to secure the Mountain Region Women's Individual Championship title with a time of 20:17.9.
Senior
Pipi Eitel was the next Lumberjack across the line, placing 35th (21:17.19) overall, while redshirt freshman
Elise Stearns (21:23.2) and junior
Bryn Morley (21:24.2) followed close behind in 40th and 41st respectively.
NAU's final scorer came in the form of senior
Delaney Rasmussen (21:39.2), finishing 51st; redshirt sophomores
Jesselyn Bries (21:56.2) and Annika Riess (22:32.4) respectively rolled in at 62nd and 83rd as well.
In the end, the Northern Arizona women placed sixth in the Mountain Region with a score of 168 points.
O'Neill has qualified as an individual competitor but it is still uncertain whether the Lumberjack women's team will qualify for the National Cross Country Championship; final decisions for at-large bids will be announced by the NCAA on Saturday.
Meanwhile, the men's race seemed just as fast paced, as the five loops stacked up quickly; the men formed a tight pack up front early, and didn't start to disperse till about the 6K mark.
The Lumberjack men ran a very tight race, ultimately placing four men within the top-13 to earn All-Region honors.
All-Americans (freshman)
Nico Young, (redshirt sophomore)
Abdihamid Nur, and (sophomore)
Drew Bosley rapidly established front placements and dug in for the remaining laps.
However, it was Young that pushed the envelope into the final stretch and nearly overtook All-American BYU junior Conner Mantz; Young finished second overall with a time of 29:40.8.
It wasn't long before the remaining NAU jerseys trickled in, as Nur (29:49.3) went sixth, Bosley (30:07.0) placed tenth, and senior
Ryan Raff (30:13.3) finished 13th.
Redshirt sophomore
Theo Quax (30:29.6) came darting down soon after in 26th, followed by redshirt redshirt junior
Brodey Hasty (30:33.7) in 30th, and freshman
Santiago Gomez-Prosser (31:39.9) in 58th.
Although BYU took first, the NAU men still managed to automatically qualify for the NCAA National Championship as the second place team.
Women's Mountain Regional Results
1. New Mexico 62
2. Colorado 87
3. BYU 107
4. Colorado State 116
5. Utah 146
6. NAU 168
7. Utah State 199
8. Weber State 212
9. Utah Valley 217
10. Air Force 260
11. Southern Utah 325
12. Wyoming 356
13. Nevada 363
14. Montana State 411
15. New Mexico State 415
16. Idaho State 440
17. UTEP 512
18. Texas Tech 536
19. Montana —
Men's Mountain Regional Results
1. BYU 42
2. NAU 57
3. Colorado 83
4. Air Force 130
5. Southern Utah 152
6. Weber State 155
7. Montana State 177
8. Utah State 177
9. Colorado State 216
10. Utah Valley 301
11. Wyoming 308
12. Nevada 353
13. UTEP 358
14. New Mexico 368
15. Idaho State 452
16. Montana 473
17. Texas Tech 528
