2024 NJCAA Cross Country Championships Recap

Champions were crowned on Saturday at the 2024 NJCAA Cross Country Championships!

The meet was held at Pole Green Park in Mechanicsville, Virginia, near Richmond.

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

For the second straight year, all three NJCAA divisions had their meet at the same site. This was a debut site for DIII, while the DI and DII meets were held here in 2021.

Scroll below to find out what happened in the Old Dominion.

Men’s 8k Race

It was a big victory for JaQuavious Harris of Salt Lake (Utah) CC. He became the first to win back-to-back titles in this race since 2016, and this time he beat three others who entered with records unblemished by JUCO competition.

Harris took control late as the top stars battled for position. In the end, Harris won in 23:30.7, which was 2.3 seconds ahead of Mohammed El Youssfi of Odessa (Texas). Emmanuel Otim of Butler (Kan.) CC was another 3.5 seconds back, and that was 3.0 seconds ahead of Barnabas Ndiwa of Iowa Western CC, who was 5.0 seconds ahead of the previously undefeated (in any competition) teammate Geofrey Ronoh.

Harris had additional reason to celebrate, leading Salt Lake to their first team title for the third-year program, which tallied 52 points as Michael Maiorano (seventh) and Finn Anspach (11^th) also ran sub-24.

No. 2 Iowa Western was second with 85 points, led by the 4-5 finish of Ndiwa and Ronoh, and No. 4 Hutchinson (Kan.) had two of the race’s 11 sub-24 runners to take third with 94 points. No. 5 Butler (125) and No. 3 El Paso (Texas) CC (153) rounded out the top-5. No. 7 Crowder (Mo.) was sixth with 182 points and also had a pair of sub-24 runners.

Women’s 5k Race

Elizabeth Ilanda of Odessa (Texas) won individually in 17:08.0, with her margin of 7.0 seconds over Faith Jepchirchir of Hutchinson (Kan.) CC coming in the last kilometer as the two stars were neck and neck for the first 4k. Yididiya Bifa of Iowa Central CC was third.

Repeat team honors went to Salt Lake (Utah) CC, winning by 50 points with a score of 55 points. Angelina Lione led the Bruins, whose five scorers were all different from last year’s that scored 47 points and won by 46. Alix Crawford was SLCC’s next runner, taking seventh as all five scorers were in the overall top-20.

No. 3 Iowa Central was runner-up, edging No. 6 New Mexico JC 105-109 as No. 2 Southern Idaho (122) and No. 4 Crowder (Mo.) (137) rounded out the top-5.

Men’s 8k Race

Jackson Bland of Paradise Valley (Ariz.) CC broke away from a pack of eight late to win convincingly in 25:14.0. Next closest – 13.1 seconds behind – was Nick Valle of rival Mesa (Ariz.), followed by Evan Casterline of Daytona State (Fla.), Miquel Cruz of Cowley (Kan.) and Joel Jean of Daytona State. Jean (12^th), Cruz (16^th) and Casterline (20^th) were all in last year’s top-20.

Repeating as team champion was No. 2 Lansing (Mich.) CC with 66 points in being the only program to be top-5 in each of the last four years. Runner-up honors went to No. 1 Des Moines Area (Iowa) CC, whose best prior nationals finish was 11^th last year. Logan Zahn was the Stars’ top runner in eighth place as the all-freshman squad scored 8-12-13-15-18 to overmatch the 6-14-19-28-35 of the Bears.

No. 3 Wallace State (Ala.) CC was third with 120 points, with No. 5 Paradise Valley (127) and No. 4 Mesa (183) completing the top-5.

Women’s 5k Race

Nora Brady of Heartland (Ill.) CC made a runaway move at about the half-mile point and built a huge lead to win by 42.8 seconds over Karen Kiratu of Southeast (Neb.) CC. Brady had a 9.3-second lead at 2k that grew to 24.9 seconds at 3k (10:25.1) before her final 42.8-second winning margin. Sierra Summers of Dawson (Mont.) CC was third in 18:23.3 while defending champ Olivia Ippel of Lake Michigan was 10^th in 18:59.0.

Arizona rivals took the top-2 team spots with No. 1 Mesa (Ariz.) CC scoring 51 points over the 67 of No. 2 Paradise Valley (Ariz.) CC. It was a first-ever title for the Thunderbirds, who were runner-up by just one point in 2022. Sixth-place finisher Kinley Jackson led Mesa with Regina Raimo (eighth) also in the top-10. PVCC also had two top-10 finishers with Keira Damron (fourth) and Laynee Hollech (seventh). Superior depth was the difference for Mesa, which scored 4-6-11-13-17 to the Pumas’ 2-5-9-33.

No. 4 Des Moines Area (Iowa) CC was third with 169 points followed by No. 7 Wallace State (Ala.) CC with 188 and No. 3 Grand Rapids (Mich.) CC with 230.  Heartland – last year’s team runner-up – was sixth with 257 points.

Men’s 8k Race

Nathan Ciarlette of Joliet (Ill.) JC scored an upset victory, sprinting away from Kevin Diederich of College of DuPage (Ill.) to win by 4.9 seconds in 25:55.3. Two weeks earlier Diederich – national runner-up last year – won the NJCAA Region 4 title over Ciarlette by 5.2 seconds. Ciarlette is the younger brother of Andrew Ciarlette, who was fifth last year.

Owen Whelan of Harper (Ill.) was third here (as he was in the Region 4 race as well) and led the Hawks in a spirited team battle as Region 4 teams dominated in taking eight of the top-10 individual spots. Diederich led the No. 1 Chaps to their first team title since 2022 as DuPage reversed order with last year’s champs, No. 2 Harper, 44-50. DuPage scored 2-4-8-9-21 compared to Harper’s 3-10-11-12-14.

Joliet was third with 85 points as No. 7 Onondaga (N.Y.) CC edged No. 4 Kellogg (Mich.) CC for fourth, 211-219.

Women’s 5k Race

Carmen Solis of College of DuPage (Ill.) won her first race of the year in surprising fashion in clocking 19:01.4. She was 26.8 seconds clear of her nearest pursuer – Isabella Wojciechowski of Harper (Ill.), who had beaten Solis in their two previous meetings. Solis took off without challenge about halfway through the race.

Alyson Skiles was third in leading No. 1 Mineral Area (Mo.) to its first-ever team title as the Cardinals scored 40 points with Jailey Pigg also finishing high in sixth. Mineral Area – whose previous nationals best was being runner-up by just one point in 2022 – went 3-4-9-10-14 in scoring to better two-time defending champ No. 2 Harper, which went 2-8-15-16-20 to tally 61 points.

The rest of the top-5 teams followed ranking order: Jefferson (Mo.) 73, DuPage 102 and Joliet (Ill.) JC 109.