2014 USTFCCCA All-Americans for NCAA Division I Cross Country

NEW ORLEANS – The U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) announced Sunday the 80 student-athletes who earned All-America honors by finishing among the top 40 of the 2014 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championships men’s and women’s races.

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2014 PHOTO GALLERY

National champion Colorado‘s and Stanford‘s men led all teams from either gender with five All-Americans each, while Michigan State‘s women garnered four All-America honors en route to their first-ever national team title.

Though both the Colorado men and the Stanford men ended up with five All-Americans each, it was the Buffaloes who topped the Cardinal for a successful defense of their 2013 national team title, 65-98. Beyond being the second national crown in a row for CU, this is the fifth for the Buffaloes since the turn of the new millennium (2001, ’04, ’06, ’13, ’14).

Leading the Buffaloes to the lowest winning team score since Wisconsin posted 37 a decade ago in 2005 (after posting the highest-ever a year ago) were fifth-place Ammar Moussa, sventh-place Ben Saarel, ninth-place Blake Theroux, 24th-place Connor Winter and 35th-place Pierce Murphy. The first man outside of All-America status by less than a second in 41st? That’d be Colorado’s No. 6 Jake Hurysz.

"It could have been any one of the seven of us who could have finished where I finished, and that’s what makes this team special," Moussa said. "This is what Colorado is all about. It’s not Ammar, it’s not Blake, it’s not Connor; this is the 2014 CU Buffaloes."

Stanford’s five All-Americans made a bit of history of their own, posting the best runner-up team score since Wisconsin was runner-up to Colorado in 2004 with 94 points. Maksim Korolev kicked in for a fourth-place finish, followed by 20th-place Sean McGorty, 29th-place Michael Atchoo, 33rd-place Joe Rosa and 39th-place Sam Wharton, who was the only male freshman to earn All-America honors.

Fourth-place Northern Arizona had three All-Americans led by individual third-place finisher Futsum Zienasellassie. Six more teams – including a Portland team that finished third for its best-ever NCAAs showing and an Oregon squad that finished sixth behind a 1-2 individual sweep by defending champ Edward Cheserek and runner-up Eric Jenkins, garnered two All-America awards apiece. The other four were fifth-place Syracuse, 13th-place Providence, 20th-place Washington and Louisville.

In an, 85-147, victory over runner-up Iowa State, Michigan State’s women posted the lowest winning score of any women’s team since the 2008 Washington Huskies claimed the crown with 79.

"When they were freshmen, we went to camp and we told them they were a very special group, as human beings," MSU head coach Walt Drenth said. They weren’t overly accomplished as athletes but they something special as people and we knew that formula would be good and they’ve evolved into pretty good athletes."

‘Pretty good athletes’ might be an understatement, considering they won so convincingly with Big Ten and Great Lakes Region champ Leah O’Connor just the Spartans’ third runner in 17th place. Rachele Schulist was third individually for MSU, followed by Lindsay Clark in 11th and Julia Otwell in 21st.

Fourth-place Georgetown earned three All-America honors behind 16th-place Katrina Coogan, 37th-place Samantha Nadel and 39th-place Andrea Keklak.

Runner-up Iowa State and third-place New Mexico — which had entered the meet ranked No. 10 in the final National Coaches’ Poll — were among the five teams with two All-Americans each. The Cyclones were powered by the top-10 duo of seventh-place Crystal Nelson and eighth-place Katy Moen, while New Mexico was boosted by 20th-place Alice Wright and 22nd-place Charlotte Arter.

Other teams with pairs of All-Americans were Boise State (led by individual third-place finisher Emma Bates), eighth-place West Virginia, and Texas A&M.

At the conference level, the Pac-12 men were by far the most dominant, with 15 total All-American selections. Led by two-time individual champ Cheserek, teams from the Pac-12 claimed six of the top nine places. The Big East and the Big Sky both had four, while the Big Ten earned three.

Led by Michigan State’s four, the Big Ten women earned six total to edge out three other conferences with fice apiece: the Pac-12, Big 12 and SEC. Just behind that trio was another triumvirate with four each: the Mountain West, Big East and ACC.

National Athletes and Coaches of the Year will be announced Tuesday.