By Ryan Tarletsky, sports editor
From the beginning, the cross country team knew it had something special this season. The runners knew that not only could they contend for a conference title, but also a national title. From a year that started slow but led to a team ranking of first in the nation, this year’s cross country team finished with one of the best seasons any Friends University athletics team has ever seen.
After dominating the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference and ending Southwestern’s 31-year conference title streak, the Falcons took 14 runners to the national races in Vancouver, Wash. For many of the seniors, this is what they had been working toward their entire collegiate careers. For All-American Jordan Arnold, who finished the race ninth, she couldn’t have asked for a better finish.
“I was most impressed with how Arnold finished. To place top 10 at the national championships is an incredible achievement, and she left it all out there,” said Head Coach Brad Peterson. “I also thought Karissa Cominator had her best race of her career, finishing 39th. She followed our race plan perfectly.”
The women’s team had a successful day, finishing fifth in the women’s division, highlighted by Arnold, Cominator and a 36th place finish by Kaitlyn Belisle.
Finishing 16th in the men’s division, the Falcons ran well but not as well as they had anticipated.
“It’s very difficult to get everyone on for the same day, but I was pleased that such a high number ran great races,” Peterson said.
All-American senior Javier Ceja struggled but still finished 28th. Collectively the men ran to some of their best times this year, including personal bests by Dan Niedlinger, Cameron Sprague, Tim Wescott and Brock Nooney, who had his second best race this year.
Carrying this momentum into next year and the years following will be huge in the progression of forming a national power house for cross country. Peterson believes both his women and his men’s teams for next year are of the top-15 caliber. With eight seniors leaving, it will be up to not only the seven returners who have national races under their belts, but also the remaining team members to help instill this formula of success in the minds of future runners at Friends.