Weekend Recap: 2023 NAIA Conference Championships

Conference champions were crowned across the NAIA this weekend.

Teams fought for conference glory and possible spots at the upcoming 2023 NAIA Cross Country Championships on Friday, November 17, at the Fort Vancouver Historic Site in Vancouver, Washington.

From The USTFCCCA InfoZone: Meets & Results | USTFCCCA Scoreboard

CLICK HERE if you’re curious about qualification procedures.

Let’s find out which meets stood out the most to us this weekend.

2023 Crossroads League Championships

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Top teams ran like top teams on Friday at the Crossroads League Championships.

Indiana Wesleyan’s men and Taylor (Ind.)’s women made it look easy at the TUXC Farm, winning handily. The Wildcats came in as the top-ranked team in the most recent National Coaches’ Poll, while the Trojan women were ranked fourth in theirs.

When a team goes 1-2-3-4 with a 7.4-second spread, chances are it will win (as long as the fifth runner does their job. The only question after that is, “How much will that team win by?” That answer was 52 points for IWU, as the nation’s best nearly perfect-scored its conference championships. The Wildcats finished with 19 points behind the skilled running of Colten Covington (first), Luke Pohl (second), Eli Fullerton (third) and Landon Wakeman (fourth). Braden Vernot was ninth for IWU.

No. 12 Taylor (Ind.) was the Best of the Rest in the men’s race with 71 points, followed by No. 11 Goshen (Ind.) in third with 108 points, No. 10 Grace (Ind.) in fourth with 110 points and No. 23 Huntington (Ind.) in fifth with 129 points.

Taylor romped to the team title in the women’s race. The Trojans went 2-4-5-6-16 for 33 points, 51 fewer than runner-up No. 22 Huntington (Ind.). Molly Gamble took second place individually to lead Taylor, right behind individual champion Anna Martin of Huntington (Ind.). Martin stopped the clock at 21:52.3 with Gamble less than four seconds back at 21:56.2.

Thanks to Martin’s low stick, the Foresters held off No. 15 Indiana Wesleyan for runner-up honors behind Taylor. The Wildcats finished with 87 points, three more than Huntington (Ind.) and five fewer than fourth-place No. 13 Grace (Ind.). No. 12 Goshen (Ind.) completed the top-5 with 109 points.

2023 Cascade Collegiate Conference Championships

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College of Idaho’s women had won quite a few times at the Cascade Collegiate Conference Championships over the years, but it had been a while since Eastern Oregon’s men topped the podium.

Well, the top-ranked Coyotes and the sixth-ranked Mountaineer men ended up the same spot at the conclusion of the day on Friday: the top of the podium.

College of Idaho bulldozed the competition on its way to a fifth consecutive women’s team title. Led by individual champion Ellyse Tingelstad, who won her third consecutive individual title, College of Idaho went 1-2-3-5-7 for a meager 18 points. Only Alauna Carstens of Evergreen State and Lauren Forster of Southern Oregon kept the Coyotes from a perfect score.

Eastern Oregon fended off third-ranked College of Idaho for the men’s team title, 48-61, its first since 2007. The Mountaineers got progressively stronger throughout the race, as they extended a three-point lead at the 2k split into a 11-point edge at both the 4k and 6k splits before their eventual 13-point victory. Eastern Oregon put six runners in the top-15, paced by Justin Ash in third place. Ash and College of Idaho’s Daniel Butler fought for second when eventual individual champion Robert Swoboda of Corban pulled away between the 4k and 6k split.

2023 AAC Cross Country Championships

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The road to the AAC title continues to go through Milligan.

The Buffs swept the individual and team titles on Friday in Knoxville, Tennessee and neither of those race results were in doubt.

Bryn Woodall and Will Stockley went 1-2 for Milligan in the men’s race, while three of their teammates followed in the top-10 to hold off a hard-charging Montreat (N.C.) squad. Woodall stopped the clock at 24:03.3, 8.5 seconds ahead of Stockley, for his second conference title in a row. The second-ranked Buffs finished with 25 points, 19 fewer than the tenth-ranked Cavaliers.

It was easy as 1-2-3-4 for the second-ranked Milligan women, as they dominated the field on their way to a 17-point score and a 25-point win over 11th-ranked Montreat (N.C.). Kearney crossed the finish line first in 20:55.6, 19.3 seconds ahead of teammate Caitlin Dominy. Hannah Brown finished third for the Buffs, followed by Zanelle Willemse in fourth. Gracie Allen rounded out the Milligan scoring contingent in seventh, 45 seconds behind Kearney.