Panorama Farms & Griak Shake Up New DI Men’s Regional Rankings

NEW ORLEANS – Between the Virginia Panorama Farms and Roy Griak invitationals, this weekend was full of surprises in NCAA Division I Men’s Cross Country. And weekends filled with surprises are almost always followed by Regional Rankings on Monday filled with changes.

Three new teams moved into the top-two in their regions – a.k.a. automatic NCAA Championships qualifying position – with a new No. 1 team among them in the latest rankings announced by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA).

Each of those moves in today’s Regional Rankings will also have significant ramifications in Tuesday’s newest National Coaches’ Polls, which will be announced live on the “Cross Country U” podcast at noon ET on USTFCCCA.org.

Regional Rankings Summary PDF | Rankings Central | Women’s Rankings

Portland made a decisive statement at Griak with a commanding victory over nearly a dozen other teams in last week’s National Coaches’ Poll, and was rewarded with a three-spot bump to No. 1 in the West Region.

Led by fifth-place Jeff Thies, Portland scored 69 points to Iowa State’s 97, putting four within the top-16, all seven varsity runners in the top-40 and nine runners in the top-50. No other team had more than six runners in the top-50.

En route to the West’s top spot, the Pilots flew right by current national No. 3 Oregon and national No. 4 Stanford. The Ducks fell to No. 2 in the region, while Stanford dropped back to No. 4. The Cardinal struggled to a fifth-place finish at Virginia, though they ran without individual contenders Sean McGorty and Grant Fisher.

While the Pilots surpassed top-five teams in the rankings, BYU did it both on the race course and in the rankings. The Cougars scored the young season’s biggest upset to date, taking down defending champion No. 1 Syracuse at Virginia, 39-44, to climb two spots to No. 2 in the cutthroat Mountain Region.

Running without last year’s top NCAA finisher Dallin Farnsworth, BYU still managed to put four runners in the top-10 and seven in the top-20. The fourth- and fifth-place duo of Nicolas Montanez and Clayton Young led the way.

The Cougars still trail national No. 2 Northern Arizona in the rankings, but they did surpass national No. 15 UTEP and national No. 5 Colorado.

The third team to break into the top-two of its region was the aforementioned Griak runner-up Iowa State. The Cyclones moved up three spots to No. 2 in the Midwest to lay temporary claim to one of the region’s two automatic bids.

ISU was the living embodiment of pack running at Griak. Toby Hardwick finished 17th overall to lead a tight group of men in 18th, 19th, 20th and 23rd – all within about five seconds of one another.

Though it didn’t see a change in its top two teams, the Southeast was perhaps the most volatile of the nine regions this past weekend. A 14th-place finish at Griak dropped Furman five spots to No. 9 in the region, opening the door for other teams to move up. No. 4 Virginia Tech moved up one, No. 5 Campbell moved up two after taking fourth at Virginia, and No. 6 Kentucky was up three after a strong showing at Oklahoma State.

See the full rankings below.

NCAA Division I Regional Championships will be held around the country on Friday, November 11 with the return of the NCAA Championships to Terre Haute, Indiana, eight days later.

USTFCCCA Regional Cross Country Rankings are determined subjectively by a single member coach in each respective region. The regional representative is tasked with weighing returning teams strength with current season results (if applicable) in determining predicted team finishes at the NCAA Regional Championships.