Nutrition - Weight Loss 2022 Best Fitness Trackers in Stillwater, Oklahoma. On Saturday, November 19, a rivalry became even stronger, a team title was determined by a tiebreaker, and past champions fought hard to defend their crowns.
Facing temperatures in the high 20s at the Greiner Family OSU Cross-Country Course, the best collegiate distance runners in the country went to battle in the most exciting team race of the year. Here are the highlights from the Big Dance.
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Led by NCAA champion Katelyn Tuohy, North Carolina State repeats
This weekend, NC State took another major step forward in cementing the program’s winning legacy. In the women’s 6K race, the Wolfpack became the first women’s team since 2010 to win back-to-back NCAA Division I cross-country titles. Led by a masterful individual victory by Katelyn Tuohy, NC State put four runners in the top 29 and came up with a team score of 114, well ahead of runner-up New Mexico (140), and third-place Alabama (166).
The individual race kicked off with an aggressive move from Florida All-American Parker Valby, who put a 3-second gap between herself and the chase pack led by Tuohy at 2K. At the first major split, NC State led with 102 points.
As the race progressed, Valby’s lead continued to grow, but Tuohy planned for this tactic from her rival, she said. The sophomore knew she’d run with the chase pack early on in an effort to catch Valby, but once she saw how far ahead the fellow sophomore was at 3K (about 11 seconds), Tuohy decided to put her foot on the gas.
At the same time, the team race started to heat up. For the first time in the race, Alabama, a squad that came in ranked No. 5 in the nation, led the competition with 131 points over NC State’s 136.
Coming from behind, Tuohy timed her effort perfectly, passing her competitor with a decisive move up the final hill at 5.6K. When Tuohy crossed the finish line in 19:27, her teammates weren't far away after overpowering the Crimson Tide and New Mexico in the final two kilometers. “I was really tired, but I got a second wind seeing them come in,” Tuohy said on the ESPN broadcast. “We were trying to count and we couldn't find our fifth girl, so we didn't know where we were at, but I just found out we won, so that was exciting.”
For Tuohy, the NCAA title adds to her growing collection, which already includes the 5,000-meter crown from the 2022 NCAA Track and Field Championships, where she also beat Valby. On Saturday, Valby finished second in 19:30 and earned another All-American honor. Tuohy’s NC State teammate, Kelsey Chmiel, finished third overall in 19:37.
A nail-biter men’s race ends with another title for Northern Arizona University
The men’s 10K competition ended in a thrilling tiebreaker between the home team and the powerhouse. In the end, NAU won with 83 points and earned the program’s sixth NCAA title ahead of Oklahoma State, a team that way out-performed its No. 4 ranking. According to the NCAA, it’s the first time in Division I men’s cross-country history that a tiebreaker determined the champion.
Oklahoma State had a better sixth runner than NAU, but in the NCAA, the tiebreaker is determined by head-to-head matchups between the top five runners of the teams that tied. NAU had the higher placed first, second, and forth runner, while OSU had the higher placed third and fifth runner. NAU won the head-to-head matchups 3-2.
BYU placed third with 132 points, and Stanford finished fourth with 195 points, an underwhelming performance after coming in as the pre-race favorite to win. But the Cardinal still walked away with an NCAA title thanks to individual champion Charles Hicks.
The championship kicked off with pre-race individual favorite Nico Young of NAU stringing out the field with a big push ahead of the chase pack. By 2K—which Young covered in 5:29 (about 4:25 mile pace)—only his teammate Drew Bosley and Hicks made the commitment to go with him.
At 3K, Stanford led over NAU with 76 points, but the Cardinal’s lead didn’t last long. By halfway, the Lumberjacks found their footing. With Bosley and Young still leading with Hicks up front (all running 14:16 for the first 5K), NAU came through with 91 points in the team race while Stanford continued to fall behind.
The Lumberjacks’ lead held up as the race progressed, but a hard-charging Oklahoma State squad put the Lumberjacks’ position in doubt. From 3K on, the Cowboys showed expert tactics on their home course by attacking each incline in the later miles. By 7K, the team moved up from fourth to third. At 9K, the Cowboys pulled ahead with 92 points, four less than NAU. But a big final push over the last kilometer from Santiago Prosser (18th) and Brodey Hasty (24th), NAU’s third and fourth runners, respectively, helped seal the deal for the Lumberjacks.
The individual race also proved exciting with a back-and-forth battle between Young and Hicks in the last 2K. Eventually, the Stanford sophomore pulled away for good on the homestretch, crossing the finish line in 28:43, just one second ahead of Young. In the process, Hicks set a course record and became the first runner from Stanford to win the NCAA cross-country title.
Despite securing six out of the last seven NCAA team championships, NAU entered the meet as a slight underdog after losing to Stanford and BYU at the Nuttycombe Invitational earlier this season. But the No. 2 pre-race ranking only fueled the team’s desire to repeat once again.
“We knew what we were going to do and we came out to the course today and we executed exactly that, whatever place that was, and it ended up being first today,” Young said on the ESPN broadcast. “We're super pumped about that.”
Taylor Dutch is a writer and editor living in Austin, Texas, and a former NCAA track athlete who specializes in fitness, wellness, and endurance sports coverage. Her work has appeared in Runner’s World, SELF, Bicycling, Outside, and Podium Runner.
