NAU Sweeps Individual Big Sky Champion Awards & Women Win Conference Championship

The NAU women, ranked No. 16  in the most recent USTFCCCA Division I National Coaches' Poll, defended their conference championship and were led by junior Taryn O'Neill's first-place individual finish. Crossing the finish line at 16:59.9, O'Neill not only destroyed her previous 5K personal record, but is the first woman since 2018 that has recorded a time under 17 minutes, and the first Lumberjack that has run a sub-17 at conference since 2010 as well. 

O'Neill was crowned the Big Sky Women's Individual Champion, ending a three-year dry spell, as a women's individual champion from NAU has not been seen since Paige Gilchrist (17:12.1) won on this same course in 2017. O'Neill is the 18th woman in NAU history to win this award.

Although the No. 2 ranked Lumberjack men placed second overall, All-American sophomore Abdihamid Nur came out on top to earn an individual conference championship as well, becoming the 29th individual champion for NAU's men's team. With an 8K time of 23:55.6 Nur was named Big Sky Men's Individual Champion, an award that the NAU men have held since 2016. 

"Those were well executed races," Director of Cross Country and Track & Field Michael Smith said. "Individual wins are always huge for us, so I'm very happy for them."

The NAU women placed five runners in the top eight to post 27 points, 46 points above the next best team, Weber State. 

Juniors Jessa Hanson (17:24.9) and Bryn Morley (17:29.5) were the second and third NAU women to finish the race, placing fifth and sixth sequentially, after placing 13th and 14th respectively at their last conference appearances. 

Senior Pipi Eitel clocked a personal best 5K time of 17:29.7 to place seventh, while senior Delaney Rasmussen (17:30.7) finished eighth overall, shaving nearly two and a half minutes off of her conference meet time from last year. 

Soon to follow were sophomores Jesselyn Bries, the 2018 Big Sky Women's Freshman of the Year, finishing just outside the top-10 at 11th with a time of 17:56.3, and Annika Reiss at 17th in Reiss' conference championships debut.

"The competition they saw earlier in the season were some of the best teams in the country; today was just a different style race that allowed them to find contact with each other and control the flow of the race," Smith said, "I think today showed what's possible when they run together and putting all these experiences together leaves them in a really good place leading up to the national meet."

Following the women's race, the NAU men started off strong but even after placing four men within the top-10, were unable to secure the conference title, snapping a four-year streak.

"We definitely would've liked to come away with a win today. Finishing second by just a few points was disappointing, but Southern Utah came ready to run," Smith said. 

Junior Ryan Raff (24:02.7) was the second men's Lumberjack to cross the line, placing fourth overall, while sophomores, All-American Drew Bosley (24:21.8), last season's Big Sky men's champion, and Brodey Hasty placed eighth and ninth respectively. These three men have all finished within the top-10 at back to back conference meets.