STILLWATER, Okla. – The Northern Arizona University Cross Country teams competed this morning at the Cowboy Jamboree. The women opened the day with a strong team effort, easily taking second place. The men raced next, finishing in third place with two runners in the top 10.
The women ran their best team effort of the season so far, earning 88 points to finish behind No. 3 Oklahoma State.
Elise Stearns was the top finisher for NAU once again, running a 20:29.5 to take fifth place.
Annika Reiss was right behind, finishing sixth with a time of 20:32.5.
Taryn O'Neill placed 22
nd with a time of 20:50.6, while
Bryn Morley and
Jesselyn Bries rounded out the scoring with times of 21:01.0 and 21:01.1 respectively. Morley took 27
th place and Bries was right behind in 28
th.
Also running, but not contributing to the team score, was
Meagan Van Pelt and
Alexis Kebbe. Van Pelt ran a time of 21:01.4 to finish 29
th, while Kebbe placed 55
th with a time of 21:21.6. NAU's fifth through tenth placing runners finished better than any other team's at the meet.
The Lumberjack women finished ahead of many Mountain Region opponents including No. 7 BYU and No.3 Colorado. BYU finished third with 113 points and Colorado placed fourth with 159 points. No. 5 Stanford rounded out the top five teams with a score of 174.
"This was one of the most impressive cross country races I've seen from the women in my time at NAU," said Head Coach Mike Smith. "It takes a lot of confidence to position yourself like that, and to believe you belong and race that way. They were fantastic. Some of our athletes that raced today are short on experience of racing at that level so it's a great sign of things to come that we have athletes stepping up in that way."
Nico Young led the Lumberjack men down the stretch, with his second consecutive top-five finish at the Cowboy Jamboree. Young finished fifth with a time of 23:20.8. Also, in the top-ten was
Drew Bosley, who ran a time of 23:35.5 to take ninth place. Senior
Ryan Raff ran a 23:45.4 to place 19
th, shaving 22 seconds off his time from last year at the Jamboree.
Kang Nyoak and
Santiago Gomez-Prosser rounded out the scoring, Nyoak finishing 38
th with a time of 24:009 and Gomez-Prosser right behind in 39
th with a time of 24:01.4.
The NAU men earned a team score of 110 points to take third place. No. 4 BYU took first with a score of 75, while No. 3 Stanford placed second with a score of 101. Hosts No. 2 Oklahoma State scored a total of 110 points to take fourth, and No. 6 Tulsa finished at fifth with a team score of 143.
The Jacks have three weeks off before they will travel to Madison, Wisc. For the Nuttycombe Invitational. The meet will take place on Friday, Oct. 14 and will be hosted by the Wisconsin Badgers.
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