LOUISVILLE, Ky. – The No. 28-ranked St. Olaf College men's cross country team finished ahead of 11 teams ranked above the Oles in the national rankings on its way to a 17th-place finish at the 2021 NCAA Division III Men's Cross Country Championship on Saturday at E.P. "Tom" Sawyer State Park.
St. Olaf finished 17th in the 32-team field with a total of 440 points, marking its best finish at the national meet since the 2016 team finished 15th. The Oles were in the top 20 at all six splits along the course on their way to the 13th top-20 team finish in program history.
Head coach
Brian Power's team outperformed its No. 28 ranking in the U.S Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA) national poll, finishing ahead of No. 15 Colby, No. 18 Emory, No. 19 UW-Oshkosh, No. 20 Haverford, No. 21 Case Western, No. 22 UW-Eau Claire, No. 23 Johns Hopkins, No. 24 Lynchburg, No. 25 Tufts, No. 26 Loras, No. 27 Vassar, which were all ranked ahead of the Oles in the latest poll.
Sophomore
Ian Curtis paced St. Olaf with a 51st-place finish (24:30.2), which was the highest finish for an Ole since Keith Ketola '18 was 43rd in 2017 after qualifying as an individual. Curtis moved up 19 spots over the final 3K of the race and his time of 24:30.2 was good for fifth on St. Olaf's all-time 8K list.
Junior
Logan Bocovich was just five seconds behind Curtis in 61st place (24:35.2) and moved up six spots over the final 1.6K of the race while posting a time that ranks sixth on the program's all-time list. Senior
Eliott Cassidy consistently rose up the leaderboard on his way to a 108th-place finish (24:55.4), rising 10+ spots on the leaderboard at each split to post a personal-best time that sits 15th on St. Olaf's all-time list.
In total, four Oles posted top-20 times in program history, as sophomore
Will Kelly recorded the 16th-best time by an Ole with his 129th-place finish in 24:59.2. Sophomore
David Lynn rounded out St. Olaf's five scorers in 233rd place (25:46.4), while senior
Reuben Kosche (250th, 25:52.4) and junior
Derk Lyford (281st, 26:30.6) also ran in the meet.
Pomona-Pitzer won its second-straight team national title with 80 points, placing three runners in the top 15 and all five of its scorers in the top 30. The Sagehens finished 32 points ahead of second-place MIT, while John Carroll's Alex Phillip claimed the individual national championship with a time of 23:27.6.
