Meet Recap: 2023 NCAA DI Cross Country Championships

Champions were crowned on Friday at the 2023 NCAA DI Cross Country Championships!

The meet was held at Panorama Farms in Earlysville, Virginia.

From The USTFCCCA InfoZone: Meets & Results | USTFCCCA Scoreboard
Related: National Championships Central | Rankings & Polls Central

It was a good day for teams ranked No. 2 entering the meet as Oklahoma State (men) and NC State (women) prevailed over Northern Arizona, which entered No. 1 in both polls.

Men’s 10k Race

No. 2 Oklahoma State made sure it didn’t come down to a tiebreaker this year. The Cowboys, edged out last year by Northern Arizona, won in dominating fashion, scoring 49 points to the Lumberjacks’ 71.

Two freshman led the way for OSU as Denis Kipnetich (fourth) and Brian Musau (eighth) were joined by Fouad Messaoudi (10^th) in the individual top-10. Victor Shitsama (12^th) and Alex Maier (15) completed the scoring as the Cowboys’ 1-5 spread was just 20.5 seconds. OSU’s 49 points is the lowest winning score since 2005, when Wisconsin had 37.

Scoring by kilometer didn’t have OSU in the lead until 4k, when the Cowboys ironically held a tiebreaker edge over NAU with both having 86 points. From there, the Cowboys exploded to a 27-point edge by 5k (54-81). Their lead grew to as much as 36 points at 7k (43-79) before NAU clawed back to the final 22-point margin. Drew Bosley and Nico Young, who finished 3-2 last year, led the Lumberjacks, going 5-6.

No. 3 BYU repeated in third with 196 points, followed by No. 7 Arkansas (224) and No. 17 Iowa State (235).

The individual battle dwindled to two runners by 9k, when New Mexico freshman Habtom Samuel led Harvard’s Graham Blanks by 0.4 seconds. Blanks took off shortly after, opening up the winning margin of 3.1 seconds to win in 28:37.7 to become the meet’s first men’s winner from the Ivy League. Samuel, clocked in 28:40.7, was the highest-finishing freshman in the meet since Oregon’s Edward Cheserek won in 2013.

Stanford’s Ky Robinson (28:55.7) was third with Kipngetich (28:59.7) and Bosley (29:03.8) completing the top-5.

Women’s 6k Race

It was about as close as could be, but in the end No. 2 NC State won a third-straight team crown in edging No. 1 Northern Arizona, 123-124. The Wolfpack were led by fifth-place finisher Katelyn Tuohy – last year’s individual winner – and claimed scoring positions 5-18-21-31-48. Comparatively, the Lumberjacks went 11-13-15-41-44, with Gracelyn Larkin leading the way. NAU had closed the gap in the final kilometer as NC State held a 116-124 lead at 5k.

The threepeat by the Wolfpack matched Stanford’s run in 2005-07 (only Villanova’s six titles from 1989-94 is a longer winning streak), and the one-point margin of victory matched the closest in women’s meet history (Oregon edged Michigan, 125-126, in 2016).

NC State’s scorers behind Tuohy were Amaris Tyynismaa (25th), Samantha Bush (28th) and freshmen Leah Stephens (43rd) and Grace Hartman (63rd). Bush improved her position by 14 places in the last kilometer. The Wolfpack competed without Kelsey Chmiel, who suffered a late-season injury; she was third last year.

Last year’s runner-up, Parker Valby of Florida turned the individual race into a rout, winning by 10.6 seconds in 18:55.2 over Alabama’s Doris Lemngole (19:05.7). Valby’s margin of victory was the largest in this race since 2007, when Sally Kipyego of Texas Tech beat Jenny Barringer of Colorado by 16.9 seconds. Valby’s lead was as big as 20.5 seconds at the 4k split.

Notre Dame’s Olivia Markezich was third in 19:10.0, followed by Hilda Olemomoi of Alabama (19:22.1) and Tuohy (19:23.0).