Official NAIA 2018 XC Thread

this thread is dead

British Columbia wins it again...unfortunately

Bill Oregon wrote:

Now that track nationals is past and teams are getting geared up for cross, thought I’d get this thread started. Feel free to discuss uprising teams, potential placing (individual/team) and whatever else that pertains to the topic at hand

Admitted bias here, but Cornerstone should contend for top 5-10 finishes in both genders.

On the men’s side, they will be led by one of the best 1-2 punches in the NAIA with Collin DeYoung ,who was 6th in XC last year and went 14:21, and Joey DeBoer who recently placed third in the NAIA steeple. Additionally, they have rising sophomore Owen Woltjier, who also earned All-American honors in the steeple, and Doug Hollett who went sub-15 this Spring. They have a bit of a question mark at the fifth spot, but do return some decent young guys and have a couple of solid incoming recruits.

For women, they will be led by Alexis McConnell who recently finished her freshman year as a 10,000m All-American and ran 17:41 indoors. She will be joined by her younger sister, Bailley, who went back and forth with Alexis throughout their high school careers. They also have Kelli Smith coming back who was their top runner in XC a year ago and ran 18:09/38:24 this Spring. Val Richter (5:16 mile/18:36 5000m) and Sierra Albus (4:46 1500, 18:50 in first collegiate XC race last fall) should round out the top 5.

No one cares about NAIA. You might as well go D3 at that point.

I was an NAIA kid around the time LRC started. I used to cruise the boards wishing that people would discuss NAIA xc the same way they did NCAA D1. I would come home after a day of construction work, do a 10 miler and hope that people would care enough about my team and division to discuss it online in the summer evenings. Guess what: in 18 years of online message boards, no one discusses NAIA XC until the 2nd week of November.

Go run hard kid. Work your tail off in the blue collar world. Earn some money, make some running friends, and go on a date or 2 with a nice young lady who can cook. Avoid the alcohol and other distractions; avoid the D1 talk your ex high school teammates discuss (they're not top talent most likely). You'll be hungry in October.

Happy Trails Hombre!!

Big dumb wrote:

No one cares about NAIA. You might as well go D3 at that point.

Maybe the NAIA school has an academic program that the athlete is interested in or is providing a better scholarship. My kid was talking with coaches from a few East Coast D3 schools and two West Coast NAIA programs. Ultimately, he went with an NAIA school because he felt they had a stronger department in his specific major. More importantly, with his scholarships (both merit and athletic), as well as lower tuition and room/board, the cost of attendance will be about $100,000 less over 4 years at the NAIA school.

I believe that on the mens side UBC will win... they are just ridiculously talented. After that, it is kind of up in the air. Southern Oregon is always a solid contender for the top pack and OKC has been great the last couple of years. I don't know much about the girls, but, a team that wasn't ranked (and didn't qualify last year) opened up their season averaging 18:37- I'm sure they will be ranked soon and make a splash on the national scene.

Here are links to the NAIA rankings and the results of Northwest Christian (the girls team avg.ing 18:37)

NAIA men

http://www.naia.org/ViewArticle.dbml?&DB_OEM_ID=27900&ATCLID=211769811

(note that the UBC ranker forgot to send in his votes lol)

NAIA women

http://www.naia.org/ViewArticle.dbml?&DB_OEM_ID=27900&ATCLID=211769820

Results from Northwest Christian

http://rtspt.com/events/oregon/preview18/mp/

They didn't forget to send in their votes, UBC has left the NAIA for XC and moved to the Canadian league (usports)

Thank god, their university has 60,000 thousand some students, built like a D1 and also travels to US meets (Cali/Oregon/Washington) along with nationals. Pretty good sell for a student athlete

Thankgodd wrote:

They're gonezo wrote:

They didn't forget to send in their votes, UBC has left the NAIA for XC and moved to the Canadian league (usports)

Thank god, their university has 60,000 thousand some students, built like a D1 and also travels to US meets (Cali/Oregon/Washington) along with nationals. Pretty good sell for a student athlete

They didn’t switch lol. They literally just joined the cascade conference for track. They will be at xc Nats (my friend is one of the voters for the polls)

You are correct they did just join the Cascade conference for outdoor track. They are an NAIA member institution sponsoring MW Golf, Baseball, Softball, and MW Outdoor TF. They however are not NAIA for XC your rater friend should probably know this and if they dont then they should not be a rater.

http://www.naia.org/Schools.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=27900&DB_OEM_ID=27900

NAIA Conference Championships are upon us. Any predictions for the top five at nationals in Iowa? What is the course like?

I predict SCAD Atlanta will win the women’s team title.

Oklahoma City for the men’s.