2014 USTFCCCA All-Americans for NCAA Division III Cross Country

NEW ORLEANS – The U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) announced Monday the 70 student-athletes who earned All-America honors by finishing among the top 35 at the 2014 NCAA Division III Cross Country Championships men’s and women’s races.

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On the men’s side, runner-up St. Olaf, seventh-place UW-Eau Claire, and eighth place MIT led the way with three All-Americans apiece.  Women’s champion Johns Hopkins, runner-up MIT, and third-place St. Lawrence each had four All-Americans. 

MIT was the only school with multiple AAs for each sex, and they brought a wealth of medals back to Cambridge: the Engineers had seven All-Americans between the men and women.  As any Engineer could no doubt tell you, that’s a full 10% of the honors that were awarded this year.

Men’s teams with two All-Americans were national champion North Central (Ill.), Dickinson, UW-La Crosse, UW-Platteville, Washington (Mo.), and Williams.  Winning with depth rather than low sticks is an NCC trademark: its last two championship teams in 2011 and 2012 also only had a pair of All-Americans.

Historically, there are typically zero, one, or two freshmen who crack the men’s top 35.  (Three did it in 1973, 1976, 1983, 1987, and 2001) A new standard this year was set as four freshmen were in the top 35.  They were Colin Godwin of MIT, Mohamed Hussein of Amherst, Darin Lau of Eau Claire, and Jonah Weisse of La Crosse.

Hussein was one of five AAs from the NESCAC, while Weisse and Lau were part of a octet from the WIAC.  The WIAC’s eight and the NESCAC’s five made them the two leading conferences.  The MIAC trailed with four.

The WIAC was part of Midwest Region domination.  No two regions combined to have more honorees than the Midwest, which led the way with thirteen All-Americans.  New England was second with eight, and the Central had the third most with five. No other region had more than three.

Repeat All-Americans were individual national champion Grant Wintheiser and Jake Campbell of St. Olaf, Eli Horton of Central, Nick Marcantonio of Cortland, Colin Cotton of Williams, Drew Padgett of WashU, Ryan Mugan of Eau Claire, Patrick Jenkins of Stout, Will Cross of Elmhurst, John Guzman of Occidental, and Zorg Loustalet of Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.

It was the third AA honor for Wintheiser, Horton, and Marcantonio. Improbably, Marcantonio has finished in exactly 23rd place each of the last three years.

No women’s conference was able to outdo the four AAs produced by Hopkins (Centennial), MIT (NEWMAC), and St. Lawrence (Liberty League). The NESCAC tied those teams with four.

The other two women’s teams with multiple All-Americans were sixth-place Middlebury and seventh-place Oberlin, which each had two.

St. Lawrence’s Megan Kellogg in 11th was the only freshman in the top 35.

The women showed significantly more regional parity than the men.  New England’s eight All-Americans were the most in the nation, but the Atlantic was only one behind with seven and the Mideast, Central, and Midwest had five each.

Repeat All-Americans were individual champion Amy Regan of Stevens Institute, Lucy Cheadle of WashU, Rachel Malone of Brockport State, Catherine Young of Chicago, Frances Loeb of Johns Hopkins, Cassandra Vince of Calvin, Emma Shunk of Wheaton, Kimber Meyer of Macalester, Emma Lehmann and Lindsay Neal of Oberlin, and Elaine McVay of MIT. 

It was the fourth straight year that Cheadle was an All-American.  She’s the 13th runner in DIII history to accomplish that and the first in a decade to do so.  McVay came excruciatingly close—she was 38th in 2011 and 2012. That’s Malone’s third All-American award; the rest of the repeaters have done it twice.

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